


I Might Do Anything For You (If You Let Me)

by spideysmjs



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: A Vast Difference of Taste Buds, Angst with a Happy Ending, Betty Brant is a Good Bro, College AU, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hair Pulling Kink, Peter's P.O.V., Pining, Slow Burn but like Not Really, Strangers to Lovers, and they were roommates!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-11-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21609145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spideysmjs/pseuds/spideysmjs
Summary: Ned pauses before taking an opportunity to make Peter’s stomach churn with nerves, “and try not to fall in love with your new roommate.”“I’m not going to fall in love with her,” he blushes, hiding his embarrassment by loading the suitcases into the trunk. “I don’t even know her.”Michelle Jones subleases the extra room in Peter's apartment for a semester – pining ensues.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Betty Brant, Peter Parker & Ned Leeds
Comments: 68
Kudos: 322





	I Might Do Anything For You (If You Let Me)

**Author's Note:**

> **WIP:**  
>  **WIP:**  
>  **WIP:**  
>  **Me:** Okay, time to write another 20k+ one shot!
> 
> Oh, and I couldn't have done this without [mynameisbirdie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisbirdie/pseuds/mynameisbirdie). :) 
> 
> P.S.
> 
> I've written about MJ + grapes twice now. I don't know why, but I love that. And Betty and Peter are bffs, don't tell me otherwise.

Peter Parker is smart – absolutely intelligent. A genius, if you will. 

He scored near perfect on the SAT (He would have gotten those missing points if not for the vocabulary portion. _Discreet and discrete are hard to tell apart,_ _okay?_ ). 

He manufactured his own webbing, which The Man himself (Tony Stark) called, and Peter quotes, “really cool.” 

He managed to get through high school with flying colors, survived the first two years at NYU with a Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering major, and has thus far maintained a pretty decent GPA for undergrad. 

However, listing these academic and superhero accolades and accomplishments does not excuse Peter from one terrible flaw:

Peter Parker doesn’t plan things. When life hits him with surprises, he proves to be the number one procrastinator. 

There’s an abundant amount of proof for this, but the one situation in his life right now kicking him to the curb is his last-minute search for a roommate in lieu of Ned Leeds for the upcoming fall semester.

It was technically Ned’s job to find a replacement before whisking himself away to Europe next month, but because he had summer classes and Peter didn’t, Peter took it upon himself to complete the task. Plus, as much as Peter loves his best friend, he’d feel a lot more comfortable spearheading the search for the person he’d be living with for the next four months. 

Except he’s totally screwed because rent is due in two weeks (on September 1st), the same day Ned takes off for Venice, and Peter has gotten zero requests from any potential roommates because he’d just posted the offer three days ago on the NYU Housing Facebook Page.

Peter’s in the middle of scrolling through Craigslist when his leg shaking finally gets on Betty’s nerves. 

“Good god, Peter, what is wrong with you?” she slams her .05mm note-taking pen on the library table, causing everyone to stare. He stops his shaking.

“Sorry,” he whisper-yells while he closes his laptop. “I need to find a subleaser for Ned.” 

“Isn’t that _his_ job?” she rolls her eyes. “At least, it should be, so I don’t have to experience your incessant leg shaking.”

“I told him I could do it.”

“Look faster, then.” 

“I’m trying, Betty." 

“Well _I’m_ trying to study,” she picks up her pen and returns to her notes for the media journalism summer course. And, as if their little break out argument didn’t bother library-goers enough, Ned bursts through the door. 

“I FOUND ONE,” he shouts, entering with his arms thrown in celebration. Heads whip in his direction all masked with irritation. He stops in his tracks and covers his mouth as a public apology before approaching Peter and Betty repeating in hushed tones, “I found one.”

“Who? How?” Peter whispers back, suddenly relieved, yet touched with a hint of fear that Ned may not have screened this roommate before saying yes. 

“I printed out that ugly flyer you made, and I was going to put it on the bulletin board in the sociology department,” Ned rambles, avoiding the hurt look on Peter’s face after being insulted about his lack of graphic design skills, “but this girl came up to me and asked me about it. I told her yes.” 

“What?!” Peter yelps, receiving an eye roll from Betty, who had put her AirPods in. “Ned what if this girl is like, a murderer or something?!” 

“I mean, she was kinda coarse and intimidating, but at least you don’t have to find an extra job to pay for rent,” Ned shrugs. 

“Dude.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Her name’s Michelle, she’s a sociology major, and she desperately needs housing because her previous living situation didn’t work out. She told me not to ask her why.”

Peter’s eyes widen in fear of the potential serial-killer-roommate-who-got-kicked-out. 

“Plus, Peter, you’re…” he stops chattering to mouth the word, “ _Spider-Man.”_

“ _Shh_ ,” Peter berates him for almost casually revealing his secret identity to the entire first floor.

“Okay, sorry, sorry,” Ned backs off. “I gave her your number, so she can text you more details about it.”

“Fine.”

“Can you idiots please _be quiet?_ ” Betty kicks both of their shins. They deserve it. 

* * *

Peter says goodbye to Ned as he leaves for the airport on Sunday morning, apologizing that he couldn’t see him off since his soon-to-be roommate is moving in the same day. He helps Ned carry his luggage downstairs and into the Uber before hugging him goodbye.

“Peter?” he says after letting go of the embrace.

“Ned.”

“Don’t replace me,” Ned jokes, with a hint of sad truth in his voice. 

“Never, dude,” he punches his arm. “As long as you don’t replace me, either.”

“I’ll try not to,” he pauses before taking an opportunity to make Peter’s stomach churn with nerves, “and try not to fall in love with your new roommate.”

“I’m not going to fall in love with her,” he blushes, hiding his embarrassment by loading the suitcases into the trunk. “I don’t even know her.”

Peter doesn’t know Michelle beyond the three separate conversations they’d had over text – one about making the subleaser thing official, another about how much stuff she could bring, and the last one being an accidental text message that was meant for her mother.  
  


**Michelle Jones:** It’s okay, Mom. Pretty sure he isn’t a serial killer.

 **Peter Parker:**???

 **Michelle Jones:** Shit, sorry. 

**Michelle Jones:** Well, you aren’t, are you?

 **Peter Parker:** i’m not!!

 **Michelle Jones:** Awesome. 

  
  


“But you’ll get to know her. I’m just saying, you never know,” Ned teases him in optimistic amusement as he has been the past few days, bringing up that Peter’s going to be living with a girl for the first time. He’s not sure he remembers the last time he’s interacted with a girl other than Betty or Aunt May. Still, he ignores his friend’s sentiment. 

“Love you Ned,” he waves his best friend off and avoiding his harassment. 

“Love you too.”

* * *

Michelle doesn’t ask for help when she moves in. Even when Peter offers, she points to the dolly and pops her earphones to tune out his voice, so he waits for her to finish, not wanting to bother her anymore. 

She doesn’t bring in as many items as Peter assumed she would: two large boxes for clothes, another two for miscellaneous items, a duffel bag, and a backpack. He figures it’s because the rest of the apartment, including Ned’s room, is fully furnished, and Peter made sure Ned purchased new and unused comforters for obvious reasons.

“So, like, I know I pretty much asked this already but you’re not a serial killer right?” she settles the last of her boxes down and closes the front door. 

“Wh-what?” 

“Do you walk outside barefoot? Or like pineapple on pizza?” she continues.

“I’m… not a serial killer, and I do not walk around barefoot in New York City–that’s disgusting!” 

“You’d be surprised.”

“I do like pineapples on pizza though,” he mumbles. 

“I’m moving out then,” she frowns. “It was nice knowing you, Peter Parker.”

“Have you ever tried it?”

“I don’t need to try it to know sweet fruits shouldn’t go on pizza,” she says, “and pizza doesn’t even need to have a bunch of toppings for it to be exquisite.”

“Then you can’t say anything.”

“I can say whatever I want. I’m not bothered by your opinion. You seem like the type to smother your fries with ketchup, anyway.”

“Oh, come on. It’s easier to eat that way!”

“ _That’s_ disgusting,” she picks up her last box, drops it off in Ned’s room, and walks back to the table, sitting opposite of Peter. 

She tucks her left foot under her thigh, settling her right foot on the ground. 

Her hair is tied up to a bun, plopped at the very top of her head with stray aways falling perfectly against her forehead. Beads of sweat are dripping from the edges of her face, trickling down her cheekbones. Her lips are pressed together, corners curled ever so slightly, forming a minuscule and toothless smile. 

Peter nearly forgets how to breathe after looking at her. 

“So,” she speaks, “is there anything important I need to know about the apartment?” 

“Uhh,” he starts, “the heater is kind of broken, but I guess that’s not going to be a worry until the weather gets colder. Don’t flush the toilet or turn on the sink while someone’s in the shower because it messes up the temperature. We have a TV, but we don’t have cable, and the Wifi password is on the fridge.” 

“Cool,” she stands up to examine the kitchen.

“Cool,” he replies, watching her back as she walks towards the fridge and peers into the cupboards that are seldom filled with utensils and kitchenware. He’s taken aback by her demeanor – the way she strides and speaks with complete certainty and precision, managing to catch him off guard at nearly every turn.

“Is that a thing you just do?” Michelle walks back toward the table. 

“What?” he blinks.

“Stare into the void. Like a cute lost puppy,” she describes. 

“Oh,” he lets out. “No, I just–” 

“Do I have something on my face?” she raises her eyebrows and opens the front camera on her phone.

 _An incredible amount of goddamn beauty,_ Peter thinks.

“Huh, there’s nothing. Guess you just like staring,” Peter swears Michelle winks before walking back towards Ned’s - um, her - room, closing the door behind her before his fuzzy brain can even come up with a decent response. 

Peter stays outside five minutes longer, staring at the closed door separating him and Michelle with Ned’s challenge of not falling in love with his new roommate ringing in his head, mocking him.

He shakes off the thought because he’s known her for all of three hours, two and a half of those silently waiting for her to finish packing, and Peter’s allowed to think girls are beautiful – that’s not what falling in love is. Falling in love is dangerous – a feeling that Peter has zero familiarity with, and he has no intention of doing so with anyone, any time soon. 

Michelle’s attractive, she’s his roommate, and that’s all there is to it. 

He leaves _that_ conversation (with himself) _there_ and waits a couple of hours until he can no longer hear the tinkering of unpacked items to lock his bedroom door and sneak out for patrol.   
  
  


When he returns, slightly underwhelmed, Peter crawls through his bedroom window at midnight and readies himself for a shower. Damp with sweat from the swing back, he tiptoes outside of his room to make sure he doesn’t wake Michelle up. However, to his surprise, he runs straight into her, knocking both of them down. 

“You’re awake,” he says.

“And you’re not blind,” she picks herself up from the floor and offers a hand to Peter. So much for his Spider-sense. 

Michelle looks at him, dressed in a silk black robe cut slightly above her knees, and Peter gawks at the way the moonlight shining through the hallway window highlights the sleekness of her legs. “Uh, Parker?”

“Yeah?” he cuts his stare, ears slightly burning for getting caught.

“Your towel’s… not really there anymore,” she shifts her eyes toward the ceiling. The burn in his ears now traveling red hot to his face as he scrambles for the towel.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

She shrugs. “Did you want to shower first?”

"What?”

“I’m assuming we’re taking turns here and not going in there together,” she teases. He wraps his towel back around his waist. “Also, you came out of your room after a long period of time, and you’re incredibly sweaty.”

She’s definitely embarrassing him on purpose, he thinks, while trying to find the right response.

“I accidentally fell asleep with like, two blankets on,” he replies, his words meshed into one breathless sound. 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to lie,” she smirks. 

He wants to die.

“Uh, I’m going to shower first, if that’s okay with you?” he tries to ignore her suggestive comment. 

“I’m the one that asked, loser,” she turns around and heads back toward her room, shutting the door behind her. 

He doesn’t know how he’s going to survive the next four months.

* * *

Peter and Betty go out for drinks that following Friday. 

He would have extended the invitation to Michelle, but she kept talking about how her art professor was up her ass about weekly projects. 

“I have to submit a painting every Monday,” she sighed once while carrying her newly-purchased art supplies into her room. “It’s kind of ridiculous and rushed, but apparently it’s for something important at the end of the semester.” 

She’d closed the door immediately – a habit of hers, Peter noted. Though it’s not much of a habit, more of something that Ned never did. They always kept their doors open, insinuating that if it’s closed, it’s Do Not Disturb. So, naturally, he didn’t disturb her. 

“I don’t think she likes me very much,” he snacks on the complimentary bowl of peanuts while he and Betty wait on their drinks. “She’s always in her room. And when she’s not in her room, she just picks on me because of what I’m eating. Pretty sure being naked in front of her made her uncomfortable.” 

Betty rests her chin on her hand, elbow propped on the wooden booth table of their favorite brewery. “I mean, did you even address what happened, or tried to talk to her?”

The thing is, there isn’t much time to try to talk to Michelle when he’s balancing a Chemistry and Biomedical Engineering major and Spider-Man shenanigans. He learns quickly that Michelle’s busy, too. Someone with a major in sociology, a minor in art, and a job at her major department doesn’t have time to just _talk._

Peter would have to make a plan. To think ahead. And he’s not very good at that. 

“Kind of,” he offers a forced smile. Betty throws a peanut at him. “What?”

“You’re _kind of_ an idiot.”

“I know, but why?” he crinkles his nose, ridding of the leftover salt from Betty’s peanut assault. 

“You aren’t actually trying to talk to her. I can’t offer you good advice if you’re being chicken about having a roommate that isn’t Ned.” 

“Hey,” he huffs. “You could have moved in, Betty, saved me the trouble of being an unbelievably awkward new roommate.”

“I don’t think it’s the new roommate that makes you unbelievably awkward.”

The waiter arrives with their pitcher of Hazy IPA. It’s been a long week, justifying their choice in a beer with a high alcohol percentage. 

“Thanks,” he murmurs to the waiter as he pours their first round. “Let’s just forget about this topic, okay?” 

She sips. “You’re the one that brought it up, Pete.” 

He ignores Betty, chugging his cup half empty. So what if he hasn’t stopped thinking about their awkward and naked (on his end) run-in? It’s anxiety, is what it is. He’s not thinking of Michelle winking at him, nor is he thinking about the way that she can’t stop making fun of him every time they have more than ten minutes together. It’s definitely not her devilish smirk or the way she leaves him speechless every time she walks away.

It’s none of that, he swears. 

His pint glass is already in need of a refill.   
  
  


After downing two and a half pints each (technically three and a half for Peter since Betty poured the rest of her final glass into his cup), they head back to their shared apartment building, buzzed and free from the stress piled onto them during their first week of third year.

“Are you gonna go out later tonight?” Peter asks. 

“And be surrounded by eager illegally drunk freshmen? Hell no,” Betty loops her arm with Peter’s, trying to balance her footing. “Are you?” 

Peter thinks of the patrolling he’s committed to, and afterward, the episodes of _The Good Place_ that he wants to watch. 

Michelle showed him the first few episodes, and he was hooked. He thinks of what she’s doing tonight, and if she’ll want to watch with him. 

“Nah,” Peter stiffens his arm so Betty doesn’t fall over, remembering the first night he’d met her in the residence hall their freshman year when her friends left her in the empty lobby because she’d been too plastered and they were afraid of getting caught by an RA. Some friends they were. 

Now, he’s been promoted to Betty’s designated caretaker while she’s tipsy. And Peter’s more than relieved that she’s decided to skip out on first weekend shenanigans. 

“Gonna hang out with Michelle?” she smirks. 

“Maybe,” Peter says as he enters their building. “Wanna meet her?” 

“Meet the girl that’s making you as flustered as this? Of course!” 

When he opens the door, Michelle’s lying down haphazardly on the couch – with one leg draped over the back, her head resting on the arm, remote balanced on her stomach. Without turning around, she starts talking to Peter. 

“Thank God you’re home, I’m bored out of my mind,” her statement makes Betty elbow his side. “I found a Rubik’s cube in the kitchen and tried to solve it, but I gave up after, like, five minutes.” 

She sits up, twisting her body to crack her bones. 

“I refuse to do work on a Friday night, but I didn’t want to go out and see–” she stops her turn and stares at Betty. “Sorry, I didn’t know Peter was going to have company.” 

“That’s just Betty,” he replies quickly, already feeling the burning daggers from his friend. “Betty, this is Michelle, my roomm– subleaser.” 

“Sup,” Michelle nods from the couch. 

“Nice to meet you,” Betty waves from the front door. There’s a dreadful, awkward silence until Betty speaks up again. “Well, I’m beat. Those pitchers really got me, Pete. I’ll see you later.” 

“Bye, Betty,” he shuts the door behind her, almost pushing her out. He walks closer to Michelle, sitting down in the small space her slender legs don’t occupy. 

“You didn’t have to kick your girlfriend out.”

“Betty?” he snorts.

“Yes?” 

“Betty isn’t my girlfriend.” 

“Oh. Cool,” she says. “I mean, not _cool_ , just like, okay. Not that she’s just okay, but–”

“I get it,” he laughs, noting that this is the first time he’d witnessed Michelle be almost as flustered as he usually is around her. “My aunt thought the same thing before and wouldn’t stop talking when she first met Betty. I had to let her down gently.” 

“Cool,” she repeats. “So are you busy tonight?” 

He checks his watch. _9:20pm._ He thinks of patrolling – beer sloshing in his stomach. His night shifts as Spider-Man are quite possibly the only thing he ever schedules ahead. Responsibility, first. 

“I, uh, have a 10-page problem set for physics. It’s due on Sunday, and it’s going to take me forever,” he answers, guilt ringing in his head for lying so quickly and easily. 

“I forgot you’re a nerd,” she rolls her eyes playfully. 

“But!” he interjects. “But I can do like, three pages tonight. And come back to you after.” 

“Sure. I’ll just read or something.”

“What do you like to read?” 

“Everything,” Michelle answers plainly. “Books, newspapers, poetry, people.” 

“People?”

“I’m very observant,” she shrugs nonchalantly.

“What do you mean?” 

“Well, for instance… I know that you can’t listen to music and study at the same time, you never skip meals – oh, you eat literally _anything,_ and you’re always just in your room,” she lists. He’s flattered, yet guilty because he isn’t as equally attentive to Michelle. 

“Oh, wow.” 

“I swear I’m not obsessed with you.” 

“No, no, I don’t think that. I think that’s kind of…” he thinks. 

“Cool?” she guesses. 

“Yeah,” he smiles. “Enjoy your book, Michelle.” 

“Enjoy your physics, Parker.”   
  


Peter spends a few hours out patrolling, most of the time making sure drunk college girls aren’t getting taken advantage of; the first weekend of the semester is always the scariest. 

He stops a bodega robbery, puts out a small fire by Central Park, and crawls back through his window – exhausted, but ready to hang out with Michelle. 

He changes into pajamas, wipes his sweat off, and walks out into the living room.

Michelle had fallen asleep on the couch waiting for him, book halfway open resting on her chest, her thumb still tucked in the fold. Peter stands in his doorway for a bit, taking in the sight of her sleeping on the couch, position similar to when he had walked in earlier that evening. It’s impossible for anyone to make sleeping look so angelic, but Michelle does it without fail. 

Peter decides against waking her up, not wanting to disturb her peaceful slumber. He grabs the book from her chest to place it on the coffee table, and he drapes his favorite sherpa blanket over her. He glances at Michelle one more time and, as he walks away, thinks that this is something he could get used to. 

  
When Peter wakes up the following morning, he walks out of his room to find his blanket folded neatly with a sticky note placed on top.

_Thanks, dork._

His heart swells. 

* * *

Their second week of living together isn’t as silent as the first. There isn’t much progress in actually _speaking_ to each other because of their conflicting schedules, but after Friday night, Michelle starts leaving sticky notes around the apartment.

 _My coffee brews are better than yours. There’s extra in the pot -_ in the kitchen.

 _Remote’s dead. I’ll bring batteries when I come back from work -_ in the living room.

 _Bringing pizza home after my last class so don’t get dinner. And don’t expect pineapples -_ he laughs at this one on his way out of the apartment. 

He enjoys the notes because, although phones exist and texting is a thing, there’s something about seeing Michelle’s handwriting scribbled all over the apartment, leaving him bits of pieces of her that make him forget that their time together is fleeting. 

When Peter starts realizing Michelle’s not going to be there forever, he decides to do something about it when they’re both eating their respective dinners in different areas of the apartment.

“We should do something,” he starts off. 

“What?” her mouth is full of chow mein. He angles his body from the couch to face her at the dinner table. She has her hair bunned up again, always with a few strands covering her eye. She’s sitting, slightly slouched, with her feet resting on the chair and knees bent. 

“I don’t know. I just feel bad since I haven’t really made an effort to get to know you,” Peter says. “And last weekend, I was so caught up in my work, you fell asleep befo–” 

“I don’t care,” she interrupts. 

“Oh, okay. Forget it,” he turns back to his dinner. 

“That’s not what I meant,” she begins, “I meant I didn’t mind. About the other night. I know you’re really busy and you never leave your room, like, ever.”

He stares at her, sending an apologetic look. She stammers over her words.

“Again it’s not that I lurk or anything, I just noticed.”

“It’s okay,” he calms her, “You like reading people.”

“Yeah…” she continues slowly, “So did you want to? Do something?” 

“Okay,” he says.

“Cool,” she returns. There’s a thick air of silence as they pick at their own foods. Peter’s become hyper-aware of every grain of rice attached to his sushi until she speaks again. “This is the part where we make a plan.”

“Right,” he lifts himself from the couch and sits across from her at the table. “Maybe talking over dinner for once.” 

They both smile at each other until Michelle looks at his order.

“Is that… cream cheese in your sushi?” she judges.

“It’s good!” he argues. 

“You like pineapple on pizza _and_ cream cheese in your sushi?” she takes her feet of the chair and leans forward into the conversation. 

“You’re still on that?” 

“I’ll never get over it.”

“ _Well,_ I was going to suggest dinner tomorrow, but it doesn’t seem like we’re on the same boat for anything. Also, I’m afraid you’ll judge what I order,” he picks up his last roll and stuffs it in his mouth. 

“I probably will.” 

“So is that a yes?”

“Yes it is,” she takes her last bite. She tosses her napkins and utensils into the takeout box, a hand extending to take Peter’s trash with her.

“Thanks.” She hums in acknowledgment.

“I have to paint another canvas, but we can just plan dinner tomorrow,” she brushes her hand on Peter’s shoulder on her way back to her room, his heart-stopping at her touch. 

  
  


“So you have a date with her tomorrow?” Ned asks later that evening over FaceTime. They hadn’t been able to catch up since he’d left, with only a few texts back and forth and a thread of Ned’s pictures at the most important tourist spots in Italy. 

“It’s not a date,” Peter argues. 

“You’re trying to get to know each other more. Over dinner. That’s a date, Peter.”

“She’s my roommate. Shouldn’t I get to know her more?”

“I mean, she’s already seen you naked.”

“That was an accident, and you know that.” 

“Bet she liked it.”

“Ned, oh my god, stop,” he begs. 

“Get her flowers or something,” his friend suggests. “Chocolates? I don’t know. Make a gesture.”

“It’s not a date, though. We’re literally planning to leave the apartment _together_ to get food. I do that with you! And Aunt May. I don’t think she’s even the type to like that kind of thing.”

“You’re missing one crucial detail here, Peter,” Ned points out.

“What?”

“She’s not me. Or Aunt May.”

“Ned, please.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t get her anything, whatever,” Ned backs off.

“I don’t even know if she likes flowers or chocolate. Or anything,” Peter explains, “Like the other day, she made fun of my socks. Plain white socks, Ned.”

“That’s like, flirting for the new ages. She’s teasing you on purpose,” he whispers for dramatic effect. 

“Flirting or not, she makes me nervous. Sometimes, she’s super suggestive and other times, I’ll say something, and she just looks at me. I can’t tell what she’s thinking, dude, or if she even likes me as a roommate. I think people enjoy my presence… I’m very likable,” Peter spins around in his computer chair coming to a stop after accidentally making himself dizzy. “Ned?”

“I think you’re a generally likable guy.” 

“Right?”

“I also think you’re stressing out way too much to just want her to like you just as a roommate.”

“Shut up.”

“I know you,” Ned, “and you haven’t freaked out over someone like this since Gwen freshman year. Remember?”

“Yeah. And I fucked it up with Gwen, so what makes you think I can do anything right with Michelle?” Peter argues and hears a rapid knock on the door. “That’s her.”

“Let me talk to her,” Ned claps his hands together as Peter calls her in. She’s changed into an oversized gray shirt with paint stains. He averts his eyes from her legs. 

“Michelle, you remember the man, the myth, the legend. Ned Leeds,” Peter scoots away from the laptop for her to lean into the camera.

“Yes, I do. Parker’s boyfriend,” she jokes. “Long distance is hard, innit?” 

“You don’t even know how much it hurts,” Ned bounces off her jokes. She laughs, and Peter swears an angel was just born. “You taking care of my baby?” 

“You bet I am. You might have some competition Nedward,” she pulls the computer chair closer, wrapping her arms around Peter. “I’m getting a bit cozy.” 

The moment passes by quickly, and she lifts herself up, stepping away from Peter. Ned remains speechless as Peter straightens his back to break the tension.

“Anyway, I came here to say we should go to the Italian place on 13th,” she’s saying, rather than asking. “I started procrastinating on my work thinking about where to eat.” 

“It’s okay, that sounds great,” he says.

“Great,” she returns as she’s heading out. “Bye, dork. Bye, Ned.” 

As soon as the door is shut, Ned’s piercing eyes on the laptop screen make Peter want to purchase a ticket to Italy and flick him on the shoulder. 

“iT’s NoT a DatE,” are Ned’s last words before he ends the call. 

  
  


Peter takes 30 minutes to figure out what to wear. 

He’s stressed, never having put this much thought into an outfit. He paces around his room. It’s not a date, and he doesn’t want to look overdressed. But he doesn’t want to underdress, either. 

He decides on dark jeans and a plaid shirt. 

After looking at his painstakingly average appearance in the mirror, he plops down on his bed and waits for Michelle so they can walk to the place together. Once ten minutes pass, and his impatience gets the best of him, he decides to check on her. However, as soon as Peter swings the door open, Michelle’s face is the first thing he sees.

“Hey,” she smiles. He scans her outfit, and to his luck, it’s as casual as his. “Ready?” 

Peter nods, and they both head out of the door. They walk side by side as they trail down the hall, into the elevator, and out of the building all without speaking a word.

“How was–”

“What are–” 

They speak at the same time. 

“You go first,” Michelle breaks.

“I was going to ask how your week was. You’ve mentioned a few times how rough your classes have been,” he stares at the grimy streets of the city, dodging crumpled litter with every step.

“Oh, right,” Michelle crosses her arms as evening air breezes against her body. Peter wishes he could hold her. “One of my technical classes for Studio Art is hard. My professor has me submitting paintings at the beginning of every week.”

“That’s what you were working on the other day,” he recalls. 

“Yeah…” she confirms, with a slight tone of surprise. “I just think rushed art isn’t my best work. I like detail. But my other art class – Race, Education, and the Politics of Visual Representation – is really fascinating. Just a lot of reading, but I love reading, and it kind of crosses over to my major.” 

She continues to talk about her fall semester schedule, and Peter realizes it’s the most he’s ever heard her speak at once. He enjoys the sound of her voice. She could recite the alphabet on stage with the spotlight shining down on her, and Peter would be in the front row, listening in rapt attention. 

They reach the restaurant as she’s finishing her rant about the white guy in her Wealth, Power, Status class that likes to play Devil’s Advocate. Peter’s content with listening to her and doesn’t feel compelled to add anything other than _mhm’s,_ _ahh’s,_ and other sounds that reassure Michelle he’s listening.

“Sorry, that was a lot,” she apologizes as soon as they’re seated. 

“I like listening to you,” Peter says before backtracking to appear more casual. “I mean, that’s why we’re doing this, to try to be better roommates and stuff. Yeah.”

“Yeah,” she hides behind the menu. The lingering silence between Peter and Michelle isn’t one that’s awkward or uncomfortable; it’s more of an undeniable _thing_ that separates the two from a fully-fledged friendship. It’s a barrier that Peter wants to overcome, to unlock what he has with her to the next level, whatever that level may be. 

Peter enjoys her presence. He can be teased endlessly about his taste in food, his plain white socks, or the way he uses Snuggles detergent, but somehow she has a magnetic pull on him that he can’t ignore. 

He’s attracted to Michelle. He’s known that since the minute he laid eyes on her. But attraction isn’t rare for him. He’s 21 – he’s had his fair share of hookups. It’s normal to be attracted to her. She’s beautiful. Her hair’s down tonight, her lips shine with gloss, and she has on a lavender-scented perfume that undeniably smells like _Michelle_. 

“You good, Parker?” he looks up at her.

“Yeah, I’m good… Just,” he chuckles at her, then pauses for a moment debating whether or not he should say what he’s thinking, “just looking at you.” 

“You do that a lot.” 

“I have a lot of reason to.” 

Michelle lets out a smile that he’s never seen before, and he’s convinced that if it weren’t for the combination of her darker complexion and the tungsten lighting of the restaurant, he’d be able to see her blush. 

“Sure,” she remarks, tone charged with a sound of distaste for herself. There’s a story behind that one-word reply, but he doesn’t ask.

“You act like I haven’t caught you staring at me either,” he says. 

“It’s because you need a haircut.”

“Sure,” he jokes. “Now, it’s time to order something on this menu that bothers you.”

“Of course you would,” she comments.

“Are you shocked?”

“Not at all. I’m pretty sure I have you all figured out.”

“You’d be surprised.” 

* * *

The non-date-dinner unleashes something between Michelle and Peter. 

Something beyond two strangers trying to get along better because they share the same space.

A friendship, Peter declares, after two weeks of walking to campus together for their 9:30am classes on Mondays and Wednesdays, studying together in the kitchen, and listening to Michelle’s rants about her heated debates in Wealth, Power, and Status.

“I’m so sick of white men,” she huffs, setting her backpack on the table after one particular argument about how success for the privileged is all about intergenerational wealth and not just “working hard.”

Really, there’s nothing Peter can say to make her feel any better about this. There’s nothing he _should_ say, either. So he stays quiet, eyes focused on her. 

“Do you know what it’s like being part of the 8% of black people in a university?” she throws her hands up in frustration. “I’m so exhausted! I hate having eyes on me when there’s a question about black people. I’m tired of sharing my experiences of racism like it’s a lesson plan. It’s not my damn job to teach the world how to be fucking decent.” 

She slumps onto the chair, arms crossed and hair in her face. 

“Do you want me to make you tea?” he offers. She nods wordlessly, Peter already getting up to turn on the kettle. A few moments of silence filter between them. “White people suck.”

“You’re damn right, Parker.”

“And you’re right, too. About intergenerational wealth.” 

“Exactly.” 

“And I think that your passion really shows the amazing things that you’re going to do after college,” he stops the kettle before its whistling gets too loud. 

“Thanks,” she sighs. “I’m glad you’re not one of those STEM majors who think a sociology degree is a waste of time.”

“Never. People need to be educated in things other than numbers and science,” he says. “Green tea?” 

She nods. He hands her the warm mug and sits down again, across from her. After taking a sip, she props her elbow on the table and runs her hands through her hair. Sitting across from Michelle, watching passion bubble within her each time she mentioned her classes, makes Peter more curious about her and her aspirations – only now realizing that, despite the fact that they’ve started to have more conversations, there’s more to Michelle that he wants to know. 

“What do you want to do? After college?” he asks. She pauses to think.

“I want to do something fulfilling. To help people. I used to want to be a professor, but then I went to college.” Peter laughs. “I just hate how invested I get into these debates. It’s draining.”

“Well, you deserve to take a breather after your asshole classmates ruined your day.” 

She rolls her neck around, bones cracking. “What about you? Didn’t you just take your first midterm?” 

“Yeah,” he answers. “My pre-lab report is due on Monday, though.” 

“It’s only Thursday,” she says. “Hang out with me.” 

“We need to get groceries, by the way,” Michelle says as she shuts the refrigerator door, returning to the couch with a bowl of washed grapes after Peter, without hesitation, decided to ditch his studies to spend time with his roommate. 

“And _cook_?” 

“You like making breakfast,” she recalls. “And we’re out of eggs.” 

“I know. I meant that _you_ can’t cook.”

She shoves him. “You’re not allowed to eat my grapes.” 

“I do what I want,” he steals one and pops it into his mouth. “So, _The Good Place?”_

“Where’d you leave off?” 

“I think I just found out that Jason can actually speak, and he just lied about it.” 

Michelle clicks the next episode. After setting the remote down she brings her hand to her shoulders, squeezing them.

“Are you okay?” Peter asks, eyes not once looking at the TV. 

“Hm? Yeah,” she says. She rolls her neck again. “Constantly painting isn’t really the best example of ergonomics.”

“Do you need a massage?”

She smirks at him, a look that takes him back to the night she first moved in. 

“No, no, I just. I know pressure points, and… yeah,” he poorly explains. 

“Sure, Parker. Have at it,” she turns her back to him, pushing her hair in front of her body.

He swallows. No, he nearly _chokes_ on the grape skin that was left lingering in his mouth.

Peter scoots closer to her back, slowly placing his hands on Michelle’s shoulders. Although his hands aren’t directly against her skin, he feels an electric wave wash over him when he touches her. He can feel the knots in her muscles – probably in the areas she moves the most when painting – and starts kneading his thumb in a circular pattern. 

Her head droops down, consuming the motions of Peter’s hands. 

“My shirt’s kind of hurting my skin.” 

“Oh, okay, I can stop, I’m sorry,” he immediately backs off. She turns to him and laughs.

“No, it’s not you. It’s my shirt. Do you mind if…” she pulls the hem of her shirt and hovers her hands over her head, requesting to take it off. 

He gulps. _Chokes_.

“If you’re uncomfortable, it’s okay, we don’t need to–”

“It’s okay,” he says. 

“Cool,” she turns around before taking her shirt off completely. 

Her bra is black and lacy. Her skin is smooth against his calloused hands. He blames the whole superhero thing for their coarseness. He hopes she doesn’t mind. 

Peter returns to kneading the same area of her skin where her shoulders met her neck, trying to undo the knots. Michelle releases a breath that makes Peter’s throat feel dry. 

“How’s the pressure?” he checks.

“Maybe a little harder?”

His touch deepens. He traces his fingertips to her neck, brushing them up and down until he goes back to the same knot.

“More.”

He listens.

“Harder.”

He’s dying. Or he’s already dead. Massaging Michelle Jones and hearing her gasp and breathe because of his touch is some kind of weird hell because all he wants to do is lean closer and move his hands down to her waist and start kissing her neck.

But he can’t. 

“Oh God,” she moans silently. He shuts his eyes as if it’d do anything to block the sound of Michelle’s exhales. He did this to himself, offering to massage his roommate. What was he thinking? A massage is sensual, and Michelle is attractive. He trapped himself, really. And now all her noises are traveling straight through his ears and down to his crotch. 

He needs to stop.

“Okay, I think we’re good,” he backs away quickly, voice high pitched. Michelle straightens her back and lifts her arms out to stretch before shimmying her shirt back on. Peter takes the time to think about the dropping temperature of autumn, the fact that it’s his turn to clean the bathroom, his unfinished pre-lab report. Anything else other than Michelle’s skin and the fact that he just spent 20 minutes making her sound _like that._

The episode of _The Good Place_ ends. Peter doesn’t even remember what happened.

* * *

“And I know Ned usually cooks for you both, so you need to learn how to do that.” 

“Yeah.”

“You never know what ingredients they put in take out.”

“Mhm.”

“And you have a large appetite because of _you-know-what_ , and you can’t be spending so much money on food.” 

“Yes, May.”

She stops their cart by the pasta section. “Are you even listening, honey?”

“Cooking, take out bad, don’t spend,” he repeats. “I’ve been in college for two years now, May.”

“And your spending habits are still terrible,” she starts throwing different boxes into the cart. “Pasta is the easiest to meal prep.” 

Aunt May means well when she nitpicks Peter’s lifestyle. He lets her because he never stops thinking of the morning she dropped him off at the NYU dorms and the way she hugged him like he was her own son, tears streaming down her face. Witnessing May’s face as soon as he unpacked the last box he brought with him to his new dorm left a guilt-stained feeling in the pit of his gut knowing that he’d leave May by herself, moving into a dorm although he could commute. But when she insisted, telling Peter that he deserved a full college experience similar to the one she had, he complied. 

“I met Ben in the residence hall my first year,” she hovered over Peter as he submitted his intent to register, answering all questions about housing and tuition on the website. “I don’t want to take that away from you. We’ll make it work.” 

And they did.

After arriving at his apartment, unloading the groceries, and placing them into their respective places (Peter commends Ned for having a system, his best friend always being more organized and structure), May places her hands on her hips and scans the apartment.

“If you want to point out anything I should fix, speak now or forever hold your peace, May,” he places a hand on her shoulder as she peers across the room. 

“I thought you’d have a messier apartment seeing as Ned isn’t here to cook or clean,” she teases him. “But everything seems to be in place.” 

The cleanliness of his apartment is all thanks to Michelle. Just by her presence in the house, Peter’s taken up the house duties to make sure that she doesn’t regret moving into an apartment with a slob. His room is quite different than the rest of the organized shared space, but no one needs to know that. 

“I told you, May, I’m growing up here,” he pulls out a kitchen chair and sits down as May continues to examine the living room not once mentioning Michelle, but somehow, the very thought of her manifested her presence.

There’s a shaking of keys on the other side of the door before it opens. Michelle walks in with a giant poster board tucked under her right arm and a tote bag full of supplies hooked over her left. 

“Hey,” he greets her, hastily standing up from the chair and grabbing the board from her so she’s able to hold the tote in. 

“Thanks,” she grins. When Michelle looks up and sees Aunt May, she stops, taken slightly aback from the face of a new guest. 

“Michelle, this is May – my aunt,” Peter gestures to her, “May, this is Michelle.” 

“Hi, Mrs. Parker,” Michelle nearly drops her tote bag and extends her arm. 

“You can call me May,” she places her hands on her hips, shaking her head at MJ’s extended hand. “Oh, honey, I’m a hugger.” 

She opens her arms to welcome Michelle, who waddles into the hug before bringing her arms around May. Peter laughs as May tightens her arms around Michelle, who has slowly softened into the embrace. “Peter’s told me about the whole roommate replacing Ned thing.” 

Michelle pulls herself away from the hug. “Yeah, he’s always constantly talking about him.”

“Same here,” May jokes. “They’ve been butt buddies since before Peter’s fear of mannequins went away.” 

“May!” Peter eyes widen.

“What, sweetie? It’s not like you’re afraid of them anymore!” MJ presses her lips together, holding back laughter. “Anyway, it’s nice to meet you, Michelle.” 

“Oh, you can call me MJ.” 

“MJ?” Peter blurts. 

“Yeah, it’s my nickname,” she states.

“Cute nickname,” May compliments her. 

“You’ve never told me to call you MJ,” he furrows his brows. 

“Well,” she shrugs. “Only my friends can call me MJ.” 

“We _are_ friends,” he frowns.

“Roommates,” she corrects. 

“But you _just_ met May.”

“And yet, I feel like we’ve known each other forever.”

“She’s got a point, sweetie,” May joins in on the banter. “Well, MJ, I’m very glad that you’re Peter’s subleaser. I can see _now_ why he’s been trying to keep everything tidy. You should see the place when you’re not living here and Ned’s too busy to clean.”

“May, please,” Peter whines.

“I highly doubt it’s for me, I mean he doesn’t even hang out with me much – he’s always just locked up in his room,” she shrugs. 

“Hey, we hang out!” 

“Peter, you better be trying to get to know your roommate,” May places her hands on her hips. 

“I do!”

“The boy asks me to get food _once_ and thinks he tries.”

“Michelle! I mean MJ! I mean, wait can I even call you MJ?” Peter fumbles over his words as May and Michelle continue to tease him, laughing with one another with Peter in the middle like a monkey trying to catch the ball being thrown over his head. 

“Relax, Peter. I’m just kidding,” Michelle places a soft touch of her hand on his shoulder. He looks at her hand, eyes widening at her touch before she takes it back quickly. “Well, I’d love to continue making you so… jumpy, but I have to finish my art project. It was nice meeting you, May.”

“You too, MJ.”

She picks up her tote bag and gestures Peter to help her bring the posterboard in her room. As soon as he hands it over through the crack of the door, she shuts it. 

Peter sighs. He turns around to see Aunt May smirking, arms crossed with a devious set of eyes boring into his own. 

“What?” Peter walks closer to her. 

“She’s funny,” May whispers. Peter hushes her. 

“Can we go to dinner now?” 

“Sure, sure,” May grabs her purse from the counter arms over Peter’s shoulders as they head out of the apartment. 

Once the door is shut behind them and they’re heading down the hallway, May breaks the silence. 

“So?”

He absolutely despises his aunt’s intuition. Still, he pretends to be clueless. “So what?”

“I can’t remember the last time you fumbled over your words because of a girl. What was the name of your freshman year dorm crush? Gwen?”

“Do you and Ned have anything better to do than bring up embarrassing moments of my life?” he groans at the everlasting regret of screaming his feelings at Gwen right before spring break, ending with her avoiding Peter for the rest of the year. 

“So Ned’s talked about MJ, too?” 

“And Betty,” he adds, giving up on hiding any information from May, shoulders slumped. “I don’t know, May. She’s so cool… and funny in a mysterious kind of way. I just want to get to know her more.” 

“You have three months,” she tries to sound opportunistic, yet the idea of his decreasing number of days with Michelle - _MJ_ \- only deflates him even more. May notices. “She seems to enjoy teasing you, too.”

“That’s just how she is,” he shrugs. 

“How do you know that?” Peter tilts his head at her question. “Have you seen how she acts outside of your friendship with her?”

He shakes his head. “I guess not. But I _know_ that’s how she is. She’s just a friendly person, and we’re sharing the same space. I’d rather not assume something out of nothing and ruin everything.”

“Good job, Peter. I raised you well,” she claims with pride. 

“You did, May.”

“She’s still pretty cool, though,” she adds.

“Yeah,” he smiles, the thought of MJ tugging at his heart. “She is.” 

* * *

The end of October is objectively the worst time of the semester for both MJ and Peter, and about 26,000 other undergraduates at NYU. There’s significantly less space to study in all floors of the library and baristas are on high alert with a customer rush every half hour, so the two decidedly post themselves in the quiet of their apartment at the kitchen table, Peter going over notes for his lab practical and MJ cranking out her third research paper of midterm season. 

“What’s another word for furthermore?” she lowers her laptop screen down, awaiting an answer from Peter. 

“Moreover?” 

“I used that.”

“Additionally?”

“That’s boring.”

“Likewise?”

“You’re useless, Parker.”

“MJ, you’re asking the wrong person to help you think of new words.”

“Useless,” she repeats, pushing her laptop screen up again, blue light emitting a glow on her face. Her eyes are squinted at the screen, lips pursed, one leg bent up on the chair and the other on the chair nearest to her. Her bun’s gotten progressively looser, drooping closer to her neck than at the standard spot on the top of her head. 

Peter beams at the sight of her.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she throws her head back in frustration. 

“Take a break, maybe?” he glances at the corner of his laptop, and it’s half past one in the morning. 

“Do you need more coffee?” 

“I meant, maybe stop for the night?” Peter suggests. 

“Paper’s due Friday night,” she groans. 

“That’s in three days, MJ,” he closes his lab book. “We’re not studying anymore for the night. I’ve made an executive order.” 

“As if you’re in charge of our apartment,” she scoffs, watching the hot coffee drip into the pot.

“ _Our_ apartment? Your name isn’t on the lease.” 

“And yet, I’m still the better resident of this place.”

“MJ, can you just hang out with me?” he says through laughter. “You’re so difficult.”

“I just like making you work for it,” she shrugs as she walks past the kitchen, nodding her head toward the couch for Peter to follow. They both plop down, taking their unassigned spots with Peter tucked on the leftmost side of the couch, and MJ pressed against him. 

Most times, her feet rest on his thighs, but sometimes – when she really wants Peter to lose his mind – she’ll rest her head there instead. Tonight is one of those nights. 

“Did you want to watch something?”

“My brain hurts from looking at screens,” she looks up at him, denying the request. He points to the purple bowl of candy resting on the coffee table in the spirit of next week’s holiday. She hands him a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

“No, hand me a York,” he requests. 

“Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are way better than York Peppermint Patties,” she announces, tossing an empty wrapper of her favorite chocolate snack at Peter.

“That’s where you’re wrong.”

“I’m never wrong. I thought I told you this.”

“The peanut butter gets tiring!” Peter whines. 

“You’re tiring.”

“Kindly move out, then.”

“Nope, I don’t think I will,” she starts hollowing out another peanut butter cup. 

“Be thankful I don’t like Almond Joy.”

“I guess that’s one thing we can agree on,” she tosses a peppermint patty to Peter’s face, but he catches it with ease. “You have amazing reflexes for a dork.”

“Thanks?” Peter unwraps the chocolate. “And I’m stronger than I look, MJ.” 

“Doubt it. I could beat you in an arm wrestle.” 

“Sure,” he smiles.

“I could,” she insists. “But I don’t want to break your arm before your lab practical on Thursday.” 

“Very considerate,” he comments. “I’ll fail it either way.” 

“Shut up,” she laughs, “I bet you’re one of those students who says that, and then proceeds to pass with flying colors.”

Peter’s slightly guilty and avoids her eye contact.

“I knew it,” she headbutts his stomach. There’s something about the way MJ’s touch makes him feel, like her head on his lap was new and familiar all the same. He brings his hands to the top of her head, running his fingers through the curls of her hair. She nuzzles into his touch.

“I’m so tired of studying,” he rests his head on the back of the couch. “I can’t believe I was excited for college when I was in high school.”

“College is still way better than high school,” she argues.

“True, but remember being really young? Like, nothing was impossible,” Peter recalls. “I feel like I could do whatever I wanted.”

“I guess,” MJ’s quiet. 

“What’d you want to be when you were younger?” he asks. 

“I wanted to do what I want to do now. Help people. What about you?” 

“I wanted to be a superhero,” Peter jokes with himself. “Around the time Tony Stark started being Iron Man. Wanted to be just like him.”

“You’ve got the science stuff down,” she says. “Honestly, never would have imagined a life with all of these superheroes just existing.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

“It makes me feel a little less competent for wanting to save the world sometimes. Like, there’s no point in me trying if Spider-Man’s just gonna come in last minute and fix everything.”

“You don’t need enhanced powers to be a hero, MJ,” he brushes the hair out of her face and tucks in behind her ear. “I know you know that.”

“Yeah, you’re right, what I was I thinking? I’m gonna fucking change lives.”

“That’s the spirit.” 

“I’ve been thinking of social work,” she continues. “I think I want to help kids. If they’re our future, and the present is what it’s like now, I’m going to want to help them.” 

As if he couldn’t grow even more fond of her, the thought of MJ working towards helping the youth put a smile on Peter’s face. He thinks about his childhood, about how his entire adolescence had been about unpacking trauma, but not being able to afford counseling, only depending on the words of his Aunt May and Uncle Ben to enlighten him. 

They did a wonderful job, the way Peter was raised being the only thing he’s been 100% certain about. 

“What are you thinking about?” MJ lifts herself up from his lap, turning to face him. 

“My childhood,” he answers honestly.

“How was that like?” 

“You know Ned and I met in the first grade?” he brings up.

“Really?” she crosses her legs on the couch. 

“Yeah,” he thinks about the first time they became friends. “We started sitting together at lunch because no one else wanted to sit around us. Our classmates – they made fun of him for his accent. He had moved from the Philippines that year.”

“That’s terrible,” she frowns. “Why did no one want to sit around you?”

“I guess no one really wanted to be around the quiet kid with no parents.” MJ’s eyes soften at him, bringing a hand to his shoulder. 

“Oh, Peter.”

“Kids are fucked up,” he shrugs. 

“Peter,” she repeats, hand moving to caress his face. “What… what happened?”

“Car crash. I was in the backseat with them when it happened.”

“I’m sorry.”

“My aunt and uncle raised me really well after that,” he continues, “every year on the anniversary of my parents’ death, they would take me to this flower shop and let me pick a bouquet to give to them. I always picked carnations because those were always the ones I saw around the house before.

“And then May and Ben would let me just sit there and talk to them. It was really nice actually.”

“They seem really sweet. I mean, May was so kind to me for the few minutes I met her,” she leans on the cushion. 

“Yeah, Aunt May’s sweet. She’s my hero. And Uncle Ben was great too – compassionate. Always encouraged me to do the right thing until he, um, he died.”

Michelle’s eyes glisten with concern when she looks at Peter.

She’s speechless, and Peter doesn’t blame her.

He looks down at the empty York Peppermint Patty wrapper, pretending to fiddle with it until he feels arms wrap around him. Her body feels warm against his, allowing himself to lean into her touch, his arms wrapping around her waist. 

He hadn’t spoken about the death of his loved ones to anyone outside of Ned. There was something about MJ that made him want to pour out his endless stream of thoughts and stories, hoping that one day she wills herself to do the same. 

Peter doesn’t expect her to return the favor, but he knows MJ loves stories, and he could write an entire damn novel if it meant getting one chapter closer to her. 

“This is nice,” she tightens her hug, the smell of her coconut shampoo in his nose. 

“It is,” he breathes her in – all of her taking over his senses – not wanting to let go of this moment. 

* * *

On Thursday morning, before his practical, Peter finds a note on the bathroom mirror that says “ _Good luck, nerd”_ in blue ink with a heart filled in next to it. His confidence for the test soars. 

He finishes his morning routine, puts on soccer sweats and a hoodie, and walks into the kitchen for a quick breakfast. 

“ _A_ _lthough, you really don’t need any more luck. I know you can do it_ ” right on the top of the coffeemaker. He laughs as he eats his egg on toast. 

Once everything is packed in his backpack, Peter finds his keys and heads to the front door, another yellow sticky note saying “ _See you later”_ with a happy face below the words. 

Peter smiles the entire way to campus.   
  


The practical was pretty easy. 

Peter rewards himself by patrolling for the first time in a week, since midterms took up all of his time. Luckily, the city of New York survived on its own without Spider-Man. With the existence of other heroes around the neighborhood, Peter actually had time to be a real college student. 

But swinging from skyscrapers is still the most exhilarating feeling he knows, and helping the world become a kinder place as much as he can is still the most fulfilling commitment in his life. 

He’s crouched on the edge of the building as he eats his favorite sandwich from Delmar’s. It’s Peter’s favorite time of the day – just after the sun has set and the golden pink tint turns into a luminous blue, headlights on cars start to click, and the palpable sigh of relief from the city collectively ending the work day. It’s right before the traffic inevitably doubles in size, before the dinner rush leaves citizens angry in long lines outside their favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurants, before the night life begins in the city that never sleeps. 

A calm before the storm. 

He gets a text from MJ.   
  


**mj:** Help.

 **Peter:** what’s up?

 **mj:** There’s a murderer inside our home.

 **Peter:** wait seriously?

 **mj:** No. 

**Peter:** mj.

 **mj:** What? 

**Peter:** you can’t just say that stuff to me!!

 **mj:** Fine.

 **mj:** But I need your help.

 **mj:** Just come home. 

  
  


He changes in an alley where he had hidden his backpack before walking through the front door, seeing MJ lying upside down on the couch, laptop placed on her legs that are draped over the back cushions.

“I could have died with how long you took to come home,” she states.

“Please don’t talk about you dying, MJ.” There’s a real fear there, an anxiety that creeps up through Peter’s neck in the form of goosebumps and prickled hairs, but he can’t tell her why. 

“How was your practical?” she ignores him. 

“It was fine,” he drops his stuff by the kitchen table. “You were right, I think I did well.” 

“I’m not surprised.”

“How’s your paper going?” 

“Terribly. And I really want to paint, but I’m missing a few colors,” she sits right side up, shaking her head and blinking from the probably head rush of being upside down for too long. Peter knows how it feels. “Come to the store with me. They also have cheap Halloween decorations there, and I figured you’re geeky and into that.”

He laughs. Peter can’t pinpoint the moment when spending time with MJ no longer felt forced. Their first dinner getting acquainted with one another felt specific and measured. But the request of his company to buy new acrylic paint – a task she could fulfill well on her own – felt blended and natural. 

It was a nice feeling.   
  


Under the fluorescent lighting of an art store, Peter’s concentrating on ignoring the intense smell of pumpkin-scented candles while pushing the cart MJ’s filling up from a list of items she’d written prior to leaving the apartment. 

He’d notice that about her – the way she’d write everything. From her sticky note greetings to journal entries detailing her day or endless lists of various topics, a few including:

  * _Important things to study for soc. upperdivision class_
  * _Toiletries we’re running out of_
  * _Movies that parker needs to watch because his nerdy ass only likes sci-fi_
  * _Different teas to try_



“All I need now is the paint,” they’re close to lapping the store.

“I thought all we came here for _was_ paint?”

“My professor wants us to start using mixed media, so I have to be creative and wanted to start as soon as possible,” she’s leaning down at different shades of peach. She grabs a small tube and holds it out between them examining the color carefully before tossing it into the cart. 

Before he could respond, a woman about their age walks behind Michelle and taps her shoulder. His roommate turns around and gasps at the sight of the stranger. “Liz?”

“MJ! It is you,” the two embrace each other. “How’ve you been? How’s NYU?”

Peter can quickly tell MJ is far from thrilled at the encounter, her face walking a fine line between awkward and irritated. He leans against the cart at the end of the aisle, not wanting to pry into their conversation.

“I’m alright. NYU’s been great; hard, but doable. How’s Columbia?”

“It’s my last year, and I’ve already started applying to med school. Clearly Harvard’s my top but I’ll settle for Stanford,” she boasts. Michelle keeps a collected demeanor. “I’ll be flying out for interviews in the spring, so fingers crossed.”

“That’s so great, I’m happy for you.”

“How’s Marcus? Last I heard you two were getting really serious,” she repeatedly taps MJ’s shoulder.

“Oh, _right_. Um, well we aren’t anymore,” MJ swallows thickly. “We broke up.” 

“Oh, I’m _so_ sorry. I didn’t mean to pull a string there or anything,” Liz backs off. “I thought you two were going to move in together.”

“Well, plans change. But uh, I’m doing quite fine actually.” The growing discomfort in MJ’s body language increases, and Peter’s slowly becoming irritable for her. 

“Anyone new?” she asks. Without thinking, Peter walks towards the two and slips his hands around Michelle’s waist. He hears her heart rate increase.

“MJ, who’s this?” he asks, giving her a slight squeeze as a signal to play along. 

“This is Liz, she was my academic decathlon president in high school,” MJ explains. “Liz, this is Peter.” 

“Hi, Peter, nice to meet you,” the two exchange a handshake. Liz tenses. 

“Same here,” he lets go of his grip around MJ. “Well, we were just looking for Halloween decorations for the apartment and MJ’s art supplies before going to my Aunt’s for dinner, so, we should probably get going, right Em?” 

“You’re right, it is getting late,” MJ offers a smile towards Liz before intertwining her hands with Peter’s. “See you around, Liz.”

The two walk off toward the registers in silence until they’re certain they’re far enough from Liz to let go of each other’s grip.

“So…” MJ breaks the silence.

“I’m sorry,” he says immediately, taking a few hasty steps away from her. “I figured I could help get us out of there…” 

“No, no,” she reassures him. “Thanks for saving me. She’s always been competitive with me for some reason. And there’s no reason to compete with someone like me.”

“What? Someone who’s intelligent, creative, and exudes passion and grace?” he refutes casually. She cocks her eyebrows at Peter and tilts her head in curiosity. “Am I not allowed to compliment my _girlfriend?_ ”

She bumps her shoulders against his. “Shut up, dork.” 

MJ’s smile shines brighter than Peter’s ever seen, his heartbeat at a pace similar to MJ’s when he had grabbed her waist in front of Liz. He replays the way she interlocked their fingers over and over in his head, wishing that he’d been able to do that and have it actually mean something, but then he thinks about _Marcus_.

She’s never mentioned him before. In fact, MJ’s never mentioned a lot of her past, her encounter with Liz being the only notable peek into her life. He starts to feel uneasy, spiraling into thoughts of doubt, and insecurity of their budding roommateship. 

“Next!” the cashier says.

And he leaves the thought behind him when they reach the counter. 

* * *

“So there’s someone else?” Betty sips her to-go cup of coffee, overloaded with whole milk and vanilla syrup. 

“There _was_ ,” Peter corrects her, shaking two packets of sweetener before ripping it open and stirring it into his plain, black coffee. MJ’s slowly convinced Peter to stop using creamer while dropping tidbits of information on all that is coffee, her favorite grind being Ethiopia Ardi. Peter likes it, too, but mostly because of the beautiful girl convincing him that it tastes really good. 

“But it sounds pretty recent,” he sips. “I think it’s why she needed to find a new place to live.” 

“Ah,” Betty opens the door of the campus coffee shop for Peter. He has a class in 30 minutes, cursing the next hour and a half he’ll spend in a lecture hall half-listening to Professor Fitz babble on about Thermodynamics, knowing he’ll only end up re-teaching it to himself again the following Sunday. “She’s probably not ready for anything, then.” 

“I got that, Betty.” She frowns at him. 

“I’m sorry, Pete. If she just got out of a serious relationship, I wouldn’t do anything about it.” 

“It’s not like I was planning to, anyway. I guess now I just have all the more reason not to.” Peter thinks about how his experiences with MJ – her sticky notes and physical touch, her teasing, and banter – were all just normal to her. It’s been her way of being friendly, something anyone would want to do because they have to be friendly to the owner of the apartment they’re subleasing.

Still, it struck Peter hard. He’d been attracted to her since he opened the front door on September 1st, and this gravitational pull to her only grew stronger as the weeks went on. He appreciates MJ, he cares for her in a way that he usually saved for only a few people in his life. And although it’s only been two months, he knows that MJ’s someone he wants to keep at any capacity that she allows him to.

Running into Liz was a sign from the universe that he shouldn’t project his feelings of attraction onto her. She didn’t deserve that, especially after the way she stiffened at the mention of Marcus. All Peter knew is that, whoever Marcus was and whatever he did, he made one hell of a mistake letting MJ go. 

“Speak of the angel,” Betty waves to someone in the distance. MJ’s walking towards them, hands in the pocket of one of Peter’s hoodies. He blinks rapidly, doing a double take. “Hey, Michelle.” 

“Hi Betty,” she greets. She’s just gotten out of her shift at the sociology department, her job being the only thing on her schedule today. “Nerd.” 

Peter shakes his head. “Hey. Done for the day?” 

“With work, yeah. I still have one page of that paper left,” she frowns, biting the bottom of her lip. 

“I’m sure you’ll finish it before the deadline.” He doesn’t mention the hoodie, and neither does she, as if it’s just a _thing_ that they do. 

(It’s not). 

“I’m holding myself hostage in the library so I can finish it,” she tugs on the straps of her backpack. “Come save me if I’m not home by the time you’re done with class.”

He chuckles. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to save you, seeing as you think I can’t beat you in arm wrestling.”

“So you’re agreeing with me?”

“No, I’m just saying you don’t need me to save you,” he shrugs.

MJ squints her eyes. “Nice.” 

Peter feels a rush to his head knowing he’d just said the right thing. 

“I’ll see you later, Parker. Bye, Betty,” MJ nods at her again, making her way past them. 

There’s a beat of silence before Betty snorts. 

“What?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to remind you that I’m still here,” she teases him. 

Peter, still lost, looks at Betty for an answer. She doesn’t give him one. 

An eternity passes on before Professor Fitz excuses the class, though the students have long been packing up their items before the official class ends at 3:15pm, a bad habit that irks Peter when he’s trying to scribble the remaining notes on the PowerPoint.

His phone buzzes on his way out.

“Hey MJ,” he answers.

“Guess who just submitted her paper 6 hours early and wants to go out for drinks later?”

“Drinks?” Peter stops walking. They’ve never been drunk together, let alone _go out_ for drinks. 

“Are you surprised?”

“No– no, that’d be great.” Peter starts walking again, stomach twisting in fear of embarrassing himself as he thinks about all of the ridiculous situations he’s gotten into because of alcohol. 

“Cool.”

“Cool,” he repeats.

“I’ll see you at home later then.” MJ hangs up first. More than ever, he wishes Ned was more accessible. He misses his best friend, misses the confidence that Ned brings him when he needs it. On top of Ned’s absence, Peter’s been in Betty’s messages too often, freaking out about every little detail of his interactions with MJ. He needs to calm down and figure out how to tackle this on his own. 

He can do it, he thinks. Peter’s used to spontaneity, to going with the flow. A night out drinking with MJ is no different. 

  
  
“There’s this place I’ve gone to on Waverly.” She informs Peter as they walk out of the apartment building. 

“Yeah, let’s do that.” Peter lets his arms dangle by his sides, hyper-aware of the lack of space between them, their hands brushing against one another the entire way to the bar. She’s still wearing his hoodie, and he still doesn’t want to ask about it. 

At the bar, they take refuge in a little booth at the corner of the dimly lit space. With the evening just beginning, there’s not many customers yet. The waitress brings Peter his margarita, and MJ her Old-Fashioned. 

“You like whiskey?” 

“You don’t?”

“It’s a little too strong for me,” Peter shudders at the thought of its wooden taste.

“That’s the point,” she clinks her glass with Peter’s. 

“So how did you find out about this place?” 

“My friends.”

“Friends?”

“Ouch, Parker.” 

“That’s not what I – You just don’t really talk about your friends,” the words come out before his brain can stop his mouth from talking. He’s not really sure where he wants the conversation to go, but the idea of her past hasn’t left his mind since they left the art store. 

“If you want to get technical,” her voice flat and slightly irritated, “I meant the people in my art class told me about it.”

He feels bad for asking. “I’m sorry, MJ, I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s okay, Peter.” The mention of his first name catches him by surprise, a melting feeling rushing over him. MJ doesn’t address him by his first name often, if at all. “I’m not very good at making friends.”

“What?” There’s a genuine shock on Peter’s face. 

“I’m not,” she repeats.

“That’s got to be a lie.”

“And yet, it’s the truth.” MJ chugs her Old Fashioned, calling on the waitress to whip up another one. There was something about how MJ carried herself tonight that was different. Ever since their encounter with Liz, Peter’s felt less inclined to ask MJ questions about her life; he had no right to try to figure her out if she wouldn’t let him. 

“We’re friends,” he offers.

“Be real with me here, Peter. If we didn’t live together, do you really think we could be friends?” she deadpans. Her question hurts because he knows it wasn’t meant to insult him – it was meant to let him know that she doesn’t believe anyone would want to be in her life if they didn’t have to be. 

“I think so, yes.”

“That makes one person.”

“You’re surrounding yourself with the wrong people, then, Em.” 

“I don’t surround myself with people,” she states.

“Well, if you decided to, I think they’d love to be friends with you.” 

There’s another Old Fashioned in her hands, but she doesn’t chug it this time. She looks into the cup, stirring the ice around the drink. Peter sips his margarita, contributing to the white noise of glasses clanging against wooden tables and the idle chit chat of bartenders attempting to increase their tips. 

“I’m too intimidating,” she says.

“That’s their fault, right? They don’t let themselves get to know you.”

“Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“You try to prove me wrong about myself.”

“Because…” he trails off, mind wandering options on how to make his next choice of words come across as casual. “I genuinely believe what I’m telling you, MJ. It’s a privilege to have you in my life.”

She avoids eye contact. He’s said too much – he’s made her uncomfortable. He rubs his temple, frustration at himself growing. His focus is everywhere, jumping from conversation to another. 

“Peter?”

“Yeah?” Their gazes meet, MJ’s eyes coated with a layer of sadness in a way that strikes Peter as raw. 

“I like having you in my life, too.” He grins, and the conversation ends there.   
  
The two get progressively drunker, ending their time at the bar after their fourth round. Peter can hear a ringing in the back of his head in the form of Aunt May relentlessly picking at his money habits. He shoos her voice away, justifying his alcoholic decision on the end of midterm season. 

Peter’s head his pounding, his vision just a touch blurry. If he were asked to pass a sobriety test, it’d be the first test he’s ever failed. MJ’s just as bad, her buzz traveling to her feet with her side crashing against Peter’s every few minutes on the way back home. 

It’s close to midnight when they reach the building, and within twenty minutes of their walk, MJ’s arms made her way around Peter shoulders, and his arm around her waist. His chest is burning in their vicinity. 

“Your arms _are_ strong,” she declares. “I think I would have fallen a bunch of times if you weren’t here.” 

“So now do you think I can beat you in arm wrestling?” 

“Maybe we can try it,” she suggests as they walk through the doors of the building. Peter drags his feet across the floor of the lobby, hand still squeezing MJ’s waist. 

“Arm wrestling?”

“I bet I could beat you at any kind of wrestling.”

“Alcohol makes you brave, MJ,” he jokes. “But not invincible.” 

“If we wrestled, I could end up on top.” Peter does a double take, her eyes gazing into his as they wait for the elevator.

“I’ll believe it when I see it, Em.” 

“I can show you that.” 

Betty’s warning against making a move starts echoing in his head almost as loudly as the sound of the elevator bell signaling Peter and MJ to walk in. The two of them stumble inside and lean against the back waiting for the doors to close. 

When they reach their floor, MJ scrambles for her keys as Peter laughs at her multiple attempts to turn the key through the hole. He places his hand on hers, steadying it, and helping her unlock the door. Her breath hitches.

Once inside, MJ tosses her purse on the kitchen table and Peter throws his coat to the couch, missing the targeted spot and landing it on the floor. 

“We’re wrestling,” she declares, hand held out for him.

“No, we’re not,” he chuckles, taking her hand anyway. She pulls him closer to her, leading him to the table. His sense of direction is jaded as if entering his home allowed his drunkenness to become more overt than it had been in public. 

MJ slams her back against her bedroom door, Peter only realizing now that she hadn’t lead him where he first assumed. Their bodies face each other with little space, hands still intertwined until MJ lets go. 

She wraps her arms around his neck. Peter gulps. He won’t do anything first. He told himself he wouldn’t, not wanting to take advantage of MJ in that way, despite knowing with his whole heart that he wouldn’t hurt her like that.

They both take a deep breath.

“Hey,” she whispers, the aroma of whiskey lingering in her mouth. “This is nice.” 

“It is,” Peter returns. “So, are we going to–”

She kisses him.

Peter consumes the moment like a glass of whiskey – swallowing it whole with promises to remember and chasing it with the acceptance that this wouldn’t last forever.

She pulls Peter closer, ridding the small space between their bodies as his hands search for the door knob to twist it open, leading both of them into MJ’s room. Peter’s head is pounding with a blaring alarm in his head that what they were doing was wrong. He ignores it. He kisses her towards the bed, both of them stumbling on top of her mattress. 

MJ rolls him over and pushes him up the mattress so their limbs no longer dangle over the edge of the bed. For a moment, she lifts herself off of him, breaking their kisses. Peter takes this time to look at her, to breathe her in. Her eyes are red from the four rounds of Old-Fashioned, red as she looks at Peter with a desire that you can’t explain unless you’re there.

She starts pulling the hoodie – _his_ hoodie – over her head, tossing it to the floor. She hadn’t been wearing anything other than a black lace bra underneath it. Peter feels the growing strain in his jeans looking at MJ as if a spotlight is shining down on her. He’s there, front row, watching her run her hands through her own hair before sinking herself down to his lips again.

The next kiss is different.

It’s rushed but deep, her tongue clashing against his before she brings hers to his jaw. His hands roam around her bare skin, rubbing her lower back in slow circles trying to memorize how her skin feels. MJ’s growing impatient, tugging the hem of Peter’s t-shirt, pulling it higher and higher until he had no choice but to pull it off. 

His shirt joins his hoodie on the ground.

MJ doesn’t stop kissing him. His lips, his neck, his ears. He can’t keep up, mind blurry and catching up with the actions he was committing. He traces his fingers up her spine, listening to her fervid cries before he fiddles with the latch of her bra until it unlocks and falls off her shoulders. 

Peter softly pushes her up, looking at her breasts as she straddles him. 

“Wow,” he lets out. 

“You too,” her hand motions to his abs. 

“It’s nothing,” he looks down, sheepish and red. 

“We don’t have to talk, Peter.”

He nods. “Okay.” 

He pulls her back in, kissing her neck, her filthy mewling only making him suck on her skin harder, certain he’s leaving a mark. She doesn’t tell him to stop, so he finds a different area of her skin to leave another one. The mixture of their breaths awaken Peter, who’s finally catching up with the moment, his focus shifting from the fleeting feeling of desire to the sound of MJ begging for more. 

Peter flips her over, tongue gliding from her neck to her chest, taking her breast in his mouth. Her hands run through his hair, slightly tugging on the ends revealing a kink Peter didn’t know he had.

“Fuck,” she moans at his tongue. “Wait.”

He basks in the beauty that is Michelle Jones.

“Want to blow you.” 

“MJ…”

“Peter.” Her response is firm, insistent but waiting for consent. 

“It might not be the best idea.” 

“You say as if we’re not both half-naked already,” she returns. She has a point – whatever line between them that may have been there before already broke the moment she took his hand when they got home. 

“Okay.” 

“As in yes?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, lifting himself off of her and lying flat on the mattress, suddenly very aware he’s technically in his best friend’s room, noting that if this were to happen again, he’d take her to his. MJ’s legs fall on either side of Peter, hips grinding down against his crotch. His eyes close in pleasure, senses unable to focus on one feeling.

She shimmies down his legs, lips peppering kisses on his v-line. He’s pretty sure he’s dead and gone to heaven. Her fingers pick at the button of his jeans, zipping it down and giving his hard member freedom to breathe. He lifts himself up so she can pull the jeans down, low enough for his cock to spring out despite the last article of clothing blocking the direct touch of MJ’s lips. 

Her breath is hot, but it sends chills down his spine. She licks the cotton of his boxers, teasing him relentlessly. His hands move to her head, hovering over her hair, too hesitant to run his fingers through it and grip it. Finally, she pulls on the garter of his underwear, exposing him whole. She takes no time to graze her tongue from the base to the tip, repeating the motion a few times before taking him in her mouth completely. 

The rousing feeling of her wet mouth around his cock makes him curse aloud, drunk with the image of MJ bobbing her head up and down. He’s still unsure of what to do with his hands, but as if she’s reading his mind, MJ uses one of her own to curl his fingers and motion for him to pull on it. He complies, his tense grasp only making the slurp of her mouth around him louder. 

“Fuck, Em,” he groans. She glances to him, her eyes piercing into his soul and a smirk curling at the corner of her lips. His chest feels tight watching her take him seamlessly. Her focus shifts back to the blowjob, bringing one hand at the base of his cock, jerking it in a motion that makes Peter toss his head back while she swirls her tongue up and down. 

He can’t take it anymore. He’s about to burst, a bit shy of how close to little time has passed. He excuses himself, though, thinking that he hasn’t had any contact aside from his own hands in the past few months. Peter deleted his dating app and renounced the life of hook ups, making it a big deal around Betty and Ned that he’d sworn to finish college focusing more on himself. 

Hook-ups are close to meaningless, an action that began and ended in Peter’s second year after losing his virginity to a Tinder match because he’d been sick of the constant teasing from others then slowly losing interest after realizing it hadn’t been the lifestyle for him. 

But here, right now, with MJ devouring his cock with his hands locked in her hair, was nowhere near a hookup. He was coming undone, his heart pounding with the tensity of her lips wrapped around him, each beat leading him closer to the realization that he has feelings for her. 

He likes MJ – liked her long before she was pushing him over the edge and making him come right into her mouth before she left him breathless and panting as he watched her swallow him dry, before she took her hand and wiped the wetness of her mouth, a sheepish smile crossing her face.

But he couldn’t tell her here, while she’s collecting her clothes off the floor. She’d only assume the worst of him, confessing feelings to a woman that wanted nothing other than fulfilling a desire that crept up because of stress and liquor. He couldn’t tell her at all, he thinks, knowing that it’d ruin the dynamic of what they had for the past two months. 

Peter watches MJ as she tosses his shirt back to him, realizing that the moment he was fearing had arrived. It’s over. His lips weren’t on hers, their skin no longer touching.

“You didn’t want–” he tries, wanting to reciprocate what she’d just done. 

“No. You don’t owe me anything,” she responds, pulling the hoodie over herself again and tossing her bra and the jeans she’d just taken off in the hamper by the closet. The desire in her voice is gone, replaced with the flat tone she usually carries only confirming to Peter that his uncovered feelings are unrequited. 

She sits back down next to him, the space between them making Peter feel farther away from her than ever.

“I’m tired,” she says. 

“Me too.” She scoots toward the headboard, resting her head on the pillow. He doesn’t know if he should leave, but he doesn’t think he has the strength to lie next to her knowing that if he did, his feelings would just manifest into something greater. 

“You don’t have to stay,” she informs him, reading his mind like it’s her own personal superpower. She doesn’t want him there, he thinks, heart shattering at her words. 

“Okay. I’ll just...go,” he finally puts his shirt back on, standing up from the bed. She only hums at his response, so he picks up his pace. He turns the knob slowly, giving her another opportunity to call him back, to say something else. 

She doesn’t. 

Peter leaves, closing the door behind him.

* * *

Their Friday night out turns into days without speaking. Peter does whatever it takes to avoid looking at MJ, thinking that if he saw her face any time soon he could collapse in his own puddle of sadness right in front of her. He knows it’s not the best idea to continue the weekend without addressing That Night, but in his defense, MJ hasn’t talked to him either. 

MJ let him walk away that night. She encouraged it. 

He doesn’t need to hear her rejection out loud. 

“I think you need to talk to her, dude,” Ned tells him over FaceTime Sunday morning. “Actually scratch that. I _know_ you have to talk to her.” 

“I shouldn’t have kissed her back in the first place.”

“But you did.”

“I’m aware, Ned.”

“Look, Peter. You’re an adult here. You avoiding her is probably making her feel like shit right now.” 

Peter knows Ned is right. He needs to get over himself and be an adult. Address the situation. His relationship with MJ is already different, irreparable now that what happened, happened. 

“Yeah,” he answers, cursing time for only making him realize how he felt about MJ when it was already too late. “I’m just scared.” 

“I know,” Ned frowns. “I’m sorry, bud.” 

“Me too.” 

The two friends sit, looking at each other’s screens. 

“Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“...Did this happen in my room?”

“Uh, I gotta go.” 

“Peter!”

“Bye, Ned!” 

  
  


It takes Peter a few hours to muster up the courage to knock on MJ’s door, but it only takes her seconds to swing it open and lean against the frame.

“What’s up?” she’d just taken a shower, towel wrapped around her head. 

“I, uh…” he waits there, wondering if she’d let him inside, thinking if she didn’t, there’s a reason that Peter doesn’t want to think about. “Can we talk?”

“We're talking,” her voice is cold, different from the sarcastic remarks she’d usually deliver before That Night.

“I meant about Friday,” he murmurs. She looks at him, waiting for more. “I… I just wanted to… I don’t know. What did you think?”

“I think we’re adults, Peter,” she steps out, closing the door behind her. She’s leaning against it, a position similar to the night in question, but the feeling is almost unrecognizable. “If you didn’t like it, you could have just said so.” 

“What?”

“You walked away.” 

“Em–” 

“And ignored me for the entire weekend.” 

The heavy pressure of guilt closes in on him. “You told me to leave.” 

“I said you didn’t have to stay,” she brushes past him, pacing down the hallway. “I don’t know. I felt stupid after, you know? I just wanted… I don’t know.”

“Michelle.” 

“I was caught up in the moment and I guess I picked up signals that weren’t the–”

Peter places his hand on her waist, turning her around.

Their lips crash against each other as he pulls her in. She gasps at the initial touch but leans into his body. He doesn’t know what comes over him, but he scoops MJ up, having her wrap her legs around him as he carries her into his room while she presses her lips on his neck. There’s an overbearing need to let her know she shouldn’t regret what happened. 

He gently places her on the bed, the towel around her head unraveling her wet hair. 

“Gonna show you how much I liked it.” Peter kisses her, slow and convincing. He leaves a soft peck on her chin before sinking down to her stomach with her crop top loosely thrown upward. He peppers his lips on her stomach, showing no hesitation with pulling her sweats down. 

He breathes on the lace of her panties, causing her to buck her hips, inhaling the smell of her. He presses his palm between her legs, feeling the damp material – a mixture of arousal and her recent shower. 

“Wait,” she breathes. “I’m…I’ve never…” 

He tilts his head, confused, recalling that she’d just recently gotten out of a serious relationship. She purses her lips together, taking a deep breath before speaking again.

“No one’s ever eaten me out before.” 

The more that’s revealed about Marcus, the more Peter gets angry, an aura of disbelief thinking that in the years that this guy had been with MJ, he’s never taken the time to please her in the best way (Peter thinks) you can for a woman.

“If you’re uncomfortable, we don’t have to.” 

“I want it to be _you_ , Peter.” Those seven words hit him in a way that nothing else could, not even the fists of local robbers or the fall from a building. 

He traces his fingers from her hips to the band of her underwear, pulling the fabric down. Her hands are pressed gently on his unmade bed. He presses soft kisses at her entrance before slipping his tongue inside, dragging it to the nub. He moves his tongue on her clit in quick circular motions as she starts grabbing his bedsheets. 

“Oh,” she gasps. “ _God_.”

He stops for a second, taking the time to remove her clothes completely off her legs so she can spread them wider. He laps his tongue up and down the folds of her pussy, feeling an increase of wetness spill onto his face, using his arms to pull her even closer to his mouth. 

Peter hums into her. She writhes at the swirl of his tongue, only turning him on more when he realizes that this is the first time she’s feeling the sensation of being eaten out, that he’s the first one with the divine opportunity to please her in a way that’s never been done for her before. 

She’s moaning, hands curling into fists, untucking the bedsheets from its spot under the mattress. 

“Play with my hair,” he moans into her and she follows his directions. She’s pushing his head down, not getting enough of Peter’s touch regardless of his tongue quite literally being inside her. He starts tonguing at her clit again, slowly placing one finger inside her. 

“Peter,” she repeats, breathless and wavering. “ _Please._ ” 

“Please what?” 

“More.” He listens, sticking two fingers inside her, curling up at a sensitive spot as he shifts in and out of her. He starts slow, only making her wiggle her hips for more of his touch. “Faster.”

“Needy,” he sucks on her clit harder, speeding the pace of his fingers. He’s enjoying himself, listening to the cacophony of her panting his name and his tongue swirling on her and his fingers emphasizing her slickness. It’s music to his ears, and he fingerfucks her into a scream. She’s loud, her curses filled with euphoria. 

“Holy fuck,” she tugs on his hair in a way that would be painful, but all it is to Peter is beautiful, sexy, and exhilarating. “I’m–I’m…” 

He stops and grins at her. “Yes?” 

“Oh, fuck you,” she grits her teeth at his sudden halt. 

“What do you want, Em?”

“Keep going, _please._ ” 

He complies, picking up where he left off, shoving his fingers through her slickness. It’s rough, but she wants it. She begs for him to move harder and harder until the grip in his hair falls apart and her arms move back to the sheets, grabbing wherever she could. 

The sounds coming from MJ’s mouth are out of this world – a sound he’s never heard and wants to keep hearing if she gives him the chance. Her pussy clenches around his fingers, her body shaking everywhere.

“Peter,” she repeats endlessly as he brings her over the edge, his mouth still on her clit as she rides out her orgasm. He keeps going when she plateaus, not letting her rest. “Fuck, Peter, want you so bad.” 

“I’m right here,” he keeps licking her, knowing she’d be sensitive from her first orgasm, refusing to stop unless she told him to. “You taste so fucking good.” 

“Oh my God,” she throws her head into the pillow. “Can’t even talk.”

“You don’t have to say anything, just let me…” his sentences fade away into him gliding his fingers into her. Her eyes are shut in pleasure, but he’s looking right at her, her own hands playing with her body. She’s massaging her breasts. “God, you’re so fucking sexy.” 

She takes a deep breath. His own words making him harder as he thinks about making MJ come twice. He could come right now, too, just by watching her unravel because of him. He brings his free hand down his sweats, jerking himself off to the sound of MJ moaning his name. He struggles a bit, balancing his hands and fingers in the moment, but he’s desperate for touch.

“Can’t handle this,” she almost whines. He disregards his own needs and wraps his hands around her thigh, gripping her skin, making her spread wider. 

He drives his fingers into her as she twitches herself into his mouth again. He forgets about himself for a moment as pushes her into her second orgasm, MJ screaming in ecstasy. 

“I don’t think I can handle another,” she laments. He laughs.

“What’d you think?” he moves from below her, sitting near her legs that were still shaking from the moment. 

“I think that,” she sits up and places a hand on his shoulder, “if anyone else ever tries to eat me out, they’ll have a lot to live up to.” 

What’s meant to be a compliment only stings when he understands her sentiment, a declaration that this isn’t exclusive, that she doesn’t plan on making things exclusive. He’s hurt, but he refuses to show it – only chuckling at her answer.

“I’m hungry. Let’s make dinner,” she gets up from the bed after pulling her clothes back on. 

“Okay,” he agrees, following her into the kitchen, saving the hurt in his heart for some other time. 

* * *

“May, what was being in love with Ben like?” he asks over a bowl of ramen during their bi-monthly Monday dinners. She’s taken aback by the question but softens at the name of her late husband. 

“Well, It was beautiful. I always felt warm around him. Like every day was a Saturday morning stroll in Central Park during spring,” she describes.

“Was it scary? When you first, uh, were falling in love? Or when something wasn’t going right?”

She looks at her nephew in concern with the sudden inquisition.

“No… Falling in love isn’t scary if you choose to jump. I chose Ben, and I was lucky enough for him to choose me, too.” 

Peter nods intently. She studies his eyes for the reason behind his curiosity, but he doesn’t tell her anything, only thinking about how the past few months with MJ hasn’t necessarily felt like a walk in the park. Apropos to May’s advice, Peter assumes what he feels is a strong infatuation for MJ, that the weekend they spent moaning each other’s name was a lapse of weakness on both ends, chasing after the hints they’d recklessly left each other leading up to those days. 

But he doesn’t know why it still hurts.

(He does). 

Although he decides to move on from _that_ weekend, it still pains Peter nonetheless. When the new week starts and ends, their experience turns into taboo – neither of them bringing up what happened, yet acting as how they had been before it happened, the only difference being his unannounced and unrequited feelings for MJ. 

He decides to push it past him, to savor the last six weeks of being around MJ, of being domestic and cooking meals together, listening to her tease him about this, that, and the other thing. Sometimes, she’ll press against him too closely while he’s cooking dinner, and sometimes he’ll run his hands up and down her thigh while they’re finishing up an episode of _The Good Place_. 

But neither of them go for it, both waiting for the other to do something first.

Betty tells Peter that there has to be something there for her, too, or else MJ would have distanced herself. He doesn’t believe it, thinking that she stays this way to make things less awkward for Peter because of the way he’d initially reacted when he told her he wanted to talk about it. It was best to not mention it again. 

It’s the Saturday before Thanksgiving break, and Peter devotes himself to doing nothing before preparing for finals. He’s mindlessly solving a Rubik's cube in bed, following the algorithm he and Ned had mastered years ago. He’s solved it three times that morning already.

His phone buzzes on his chest.

**MJ** : Watcha doin today?

 **Peter** : absolutely nothing

 **MJ** : Wanna grab some bagels?

 **Peter** : when?

 **MJ** : Right now.

He grabs both his and Michelle’s bagel orders before sitting on the patio style furniture of the cafe. She’s smiling at her phone.

“My mom,” she types a response, “won’t stop texting me.” 

There’s a different aura around MJ today, from the way she’s dressed to the soft smile on her face. Her hair is let loose – something he noticed she’d been doing more often. She has a small coat of lipgloss on, and blush blended onto her cheekbones. 

“You look really pretty.”

“And therefore I have value?” His eyes widen, and she lets out a laugh. “I’m just messing with you.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“What bagel did you order?”

“You’re going to hate it, I already know,” he playfully rolls his eyes. She leans forward, a look of preconceived judgment on her face as she prepares for his answer. “I got a plain bagel with honey walnut cream cheese, banana, and cinnamon.”

“Sweet tooth,” she laughs but doesn’t make fun of it. “I got the lox on an everything bagel. I’d let you try it but it’d totally ruin your palette for your order.”

“Thanks for the consideration.”

They finish their bagels under the overcast sky while listening to the sweet sound of angry New Yorkers on the phone or in their cars honking their cars in neverending traffic. Her phone gets occasional texts that catch Peter’s attention, but he reminds himself not to pry.

“Do you wanna chill at the park today?” she asks as they wrap up their trash. “I just wanna go home and grab some stuff before going. Maybe you can study there?”

“I refuse to study. But I’ll go to the park,” he smiles. They walk back to the building, and she dismisses herself and tells him to wait in the lobby so she can grab her things. She walks back out with a full backpack. 

“You going on a hike?” he teases.

“Shut up.” 

At the park, they find a cozy patch of grass to settle down on. She digs into her backpack and lays out a blanket. They’re sitting side by side when she starts unpacking a sketchbook. 

“I like drawing here, and I didn’t feel like being alone,” she explains. 

“No problem, Em,” he lies flat on his back, feeling the cold breeze on his face. He watches her sketch and she’s in complete focus, lips pursed for extra precision. Once in a while, she’ll look up and catch him staring at her. She’ll smile and look back down. He decides to grab his phone and snap a candid of her until she notices and begs him to stop. 

“But you look so perfect,” he praises.

“You’re so lame,” she crumples up a piece of scratch paper and tosses it to his face.

“I’ll take it,” he continues to snap photos. He lays back down and scrolls through his camera roll, and he’s convinced that whoever’s controlling the universe took their time creating her. Although the sky was filled with gray clouds, the photo still highlights her best features – almost as if the lack of sun made the entire thing better, and Peter absolutely adored the way her front teeth sneak out when she smiles. 

After falling asleep in the park, Peter opens his eyes to Michelle watching him intently. He rubs his eyes, and no, it’s not a dream. 

“Good morning sleepyhead,” she says. “You ready to go?” 

Peter helps fold the blanket for Michelle to stuff into her meant-for-extreme-nature backpack. They make their way out of the park, letting their hands dangle next to one another. Peter so badly wants to take her hand in his because he just wants to let her know that she’s all that he wants in this life, but refrains. 

“What’d you draw?” 

“Bunch of doodles of people I saw in the park. I haven’t done it in a while and today’s a really great day to do it,” Michelle pulls her hands up to the end of her backpack straps. “In high school, I used to enjoy drawing people in crisis.”

“How am I not surprised?” 

“I like to think that everything I do is on brand. Unlike you,” she adds.

“What do you mean?”

“I just feel like you always manage to surprise me,” she’s twirling the ends of her straps. “Like you have tricks up your sleeve.”

“It would be so cool right now if I just pulled a magician trick on you.”

“Why would you bring it up if you can’t commit?” she quips. 

Peter shrugs and reacts to a drop of water falling on his face. “Oh no.” 

The sky starts sprinkling down on them, neither of them had packed an umbrella although MJ’s backpack seemed to have everything. She chuckles, intertwining her hands with his before quickening their pace back to the apartment. It starts pouring heavily as they run, with MJ commenting on how luckily her backpack was waterproof. Peter starts slowing down.

“Are you crazy? Why are you stopping?”

“We’re already wet, MJ,” he shrugs. Their hands are still locked together. 

“I guess you have a point.” 

He could experience this over and over again – his hand in hers and the downpour of heavy rain above the two of them, the initial fear of the surprise weather attack transforming into a spontaneous feeling in his gut. 

When they reach their door, he takes his time grabbing the keys out of his pocket to unlock their front door because he’s truly not ready for this day to be over. He wants every day to feel like today. But now they’re standing idly in the living room, and MJ nods in the direction to her room, letting him know that the moment has passed. 

“Thanks for today, Parker.”

She brings a hand to his face, grazing her thumb across his cheekbone before they both walk into their respective rooms. 

Peter’s back to where he was earlier this morning, tossing the Rubik’s cube in the air and thinking about his girl next door. He really likes MJ. He wants to curse at the heavens for Ned being right, and he wants to bang his head against the wall because he’s never been so unsure of what to do. He’s never been this close to ever feeling like someone might actually feel the same way. 

He wants to believe MJ likes him, but he can’t dust away the crumbs of conversation about her past lover, and the fact is that he and MJ were just roommates. Roommates who’ve gone to third base, but roommates all the same. 

It’s infuriating how obvious the solution to this would be. To just let it all out in the open. But if he did, everything would change. Maybe it was him, maybe he wanted to believe it wasn’t that simple. Because even despite her blatant answers and brutal honesty, MJ is far from simple. 

The Rubik’s cube falls on his head, and he allows it because he knows he’s being a complete idiot. _Just do it._ Peter takes one deep breath and finds himself in front of Michelle’s door, and just as he’s about to knock, her frustrated groans echo to his ear.

“Mom, I’m sorry I didn’t call you earlier, okay?” 

“Just wanted to talk to my baby on her birthday,” a muffled voice responds. 

Today was Michelle’s birthday. And she spent it with _him._

“I was busy.”

“Is this about that boy you live with?”

“I don’t want to get into this conversation right now.”

“Honey, be careful. Don’t make this like Marcus again. So much time down the drain.” 

“I know, mama, you don’t have to repeat it. And besides, Peter and I are… It’s not like that.”

“Take your time, sweetie. You’re special,” they continue speaking but Peter walks away, feeling distraught at himself for listening in, relieved to know where MJ stood in their little tango but confused because she spent her birthday with him.

Although he’s hurt, Peter still wants to leave her a gift – something to let her know that he’s there for her, despite the fact that she’ll never return the same feeling of want. He dips out of the apartment in search of something to give to MJ.

He leaves a vase of roses on the kitchen counter and a sticky note in Peter’s handwriting, _happy birthday em._

  
The flowers are no longer in the kitchen when Peter wakes up later than her, and MJ doesn’t mention them.

When they finally speak to each other the following day, it’s about laundry. 

“Do you have extra detergent?” MJ interrupts his hopeless attempt at writing a paper on a Sunday afternoon. He takes his headphones out and turns to her. She’s leaning on his open door frame with a basket of clothes balanced on her thigh. 

“So _that’s_ the smell that’s been in the apartment,” he makes a comment that’s rewarded with a ball up sock almost hitting his face before he dodges it. “It’s in the closet near the front door.”

“Thanks,” she says. “What paper is that?”

“Anthropology. It’s a GE class.”

“Is it due tomorrow?”

“No, it’s a rough draft of my final paper. Just trying to get started because I suck at writing,” he glares at the empty document titled _Anthro Paper...Bleh._

“Okay, well, ignore your paper for one more day and watch a movie with me,” she states. “It’ll be easier for time to pass.” 

He shuts his laptop down and laughs at how easily he’s convinced to procrastinate another day, grasping at the opportunity to spend time with MJ despite the fact that his birthday acknowledgment went unnoticed. 

When she returns from the laundry room, she connects _500 Days of Summer_ from her laptop to the living room TV. She rests her head on his lap, and Peter tries to steal glances at her whenever the end of one scene transitions into another until she catches him, causing him to look away.

As the movie ends, Peter’s frowning when MJ turns her body to look up at him.

“Did you not like it?” 

“I guess I just prefer happy endings.”

“Don’t you like the fact that it’s so real?”

“I mean, Summer kind of fucked Tom over, didn’t she? That’s not love.” 

“Of _course_ you’re one of those,” she lifts herself from his thighs.

“What do you mean?”

“You think that Summer’s the bad guy in this.” 

“I mean… she did lie to him. She said she didn’t want to define their relationship essentially because she didn’t feel like committing to him, and then right after they break up, she’s engaged to another man?”

“How is that a lie? Summer’s being honest. She doesn’t know what she wants, and after she left him she found someone that she did. She doesn’t owe Tom anything. He chose to fall in love with her knowing completely where she stood about the entire thing.”

“Okay,” he accepts MJ’s explanation. “Guess I just had the wrong idea of it.”

“You do,” she confirms, spacing herself further away.

“That doesn’t change that the movie still has a sad ending.”

“That’s how life is, though. Things don’t work out all the time like they do in that pretty little head of yours. And there’s a reason why there are Summers. It’s because they’re tired of being Tom.” 

“I guess.” 

“Do you know what love is like, Parker?” He shakes his head, knowing that the person he’s had the strongest feelings for is the one begging the question. “You know those dreams where you’re falling? And you don’t know how long it’ll take to hit the ground, or you don’t know if someone will catch you?” 

He nods and lets her continue.

“That’s what I think it feels like. Like you’re thrown off the edge of the unknown, the unfamiliar. And no one catches you.”

Peter sighs – unable to relate – a burning turmoil in his soul as he watches her answer her own question, only thinking about how much he wanted to tell MJ that for her, he’d jump into the void of the unknown headfirst.

She’s quiet. She looks down at her fingers as if they’ve left traces of memories too strong to forget. Her voice is soft, a stark difference than when she was previously redefining the meaning of the movie to Peter. 

“Is this about Marcus?” he doesn’t think about his question until he falls out of his mouth. 

“What?” she blinks.

“I remember Liz mentioning him when we ran into her at the store.”

“You remember that?”

“How could I forget?” he murmurs. She removes herself from the couch, pacing back and forth in between Peter and the TV. 

“As if you know anything about it,” she grumbles, continuing to circle the room. He panics, ears burning from embarrassment, trapped in a hole of their conversation, unable to process his mistakes. Peter brought himself in this mess, not finding the words to pull himself out. 

“Maybe you just didn’t love the right person,” he suggests under his breath with uncertainty in his tone. She catches it, scoffing and grabbing her keys from the coffee table.

“I think my laundry’s done,” she says, discomfort in her voice as she stalks out of the front door, letting it slam behind her. 

  
  


Disappointed in himself and his lack of forward-thinking, Peter lets off some steam by going on patrol. What typically helps him escape from the regular problems that his life as Peter Parker brings him, only makes him think about MJ more as he swings across the city.

Guilt takes over him, a thing he’s used to. Peter’s driven a lot by guilt, by always wanting to please everyone with zero expectations of anyone returning the favor. It’s the same for MJ; he wants to impress her, he hates that he said something incredibly stupid and wrong, but he doesn’t expect forgiveness. He just wants her to know that he’s sorry. 

There’s not much time to practice an apology in his head before he hears a gunshot three blocks down from the building he’s occupying. He webs to the source of the noise immediately and stops a kid from being mugged by webbing up the perpetrator to the wall. 

“Thank you, Spider-Man,” the kid’s voice is shaking, “I didn’t know what to do. I–”

“Don’t need to thank me,” he places his hands on his hips, smiling even though no one can see it. The kid’s running off now, but to Peter’s dismay, he senses another threat in the alley. He’s scanning around, trying to ignore the nonstop shit-talk coming from the man webbed on the hall. 

“I’m trying to do my job here,” Peter sneers. 

“Do it better,” the man spits and suddenly, two people come at Peter from both sides. He’s struggling to shake the bigger man off of him as he hears a cut of a knife slicing the webs off the wall. 

“Three versus one, now? Come on, this isn’t fair at all,” he quips before throwing punches. He’s successfully slowing them down, until he misses the knife cutting his thigh, causing him to topple over. “Great.”

He aims his webshooters at the gash to stop the blood from flowing. “I’m already having a bad day, fellas, and you just _had_ to make it worse.”

They edge closer to him, Peter taking this opportunity to web their feet to the ground. They collapse in a tangle of limbs on the ground. He aims at them again for good measure before thwipping away to his apartment. 

Pain is writhing throughout his entire leg, but it only motivates him to reach the window of his room sooner. He stumbles right beside his bed, knocking down the lamp on his desk and busting the lightbulb. 

“Shit.” He’s searching under his bed for the first aid kid he and Ned fashioned while simultaneously trying not to think about how hard it would be to clean up the bloody carpet when he hears the door open. 

“Who’s in here?! What did you do to Peter?” he looks up and Michelle’s in the doorway carrying Ned’s metal bat. She turns on the lights and meets eyes with (one) bug-eyed man.

“Spider-Man? What’d you do to my roommate?”

“Um,” is all he says before MJ takes one big sigh.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“Hey, Em.” Peter rips off his mask and smiles nervously. “Surprise…” 

“Are you okay? The floor’s super bloody. Did you get hurt?” she bombards him with questions, a concerned twinge tone in her voice similar to what he usually hears from Ned or May. She keeps asking him questions regarding his safety, not once focusing on the fact that he’d just revealed his superhero identity.

“MJ, I’m fine, I’m good. I just need to rest. It’ll heal,” he groans. “I promise I’m okay. This happens like once a month.”

She helps him get up on the bed. “Do you need me to do anything for you?”

“Can you just grab me new clothes? I’ll clean this up,” he’s already padding down the wound with rubbing alcohol, wincing at the initial shock of the liquid. 

“So when you said you wanted to be a superhero when you were a kid, you were really committed,” she tosses the shirt to him. He’s already changed out of the suit, now sporting just a pair of boxers. 

“Oh, the way this happened wasn’t very ideal,” he responds. “Lots of trauma and a murder involved.” 

Silence fills the room, and after all the commotion he notices MJ’s freshly-showered hair and matching pajama set. She walks towards his bed, not understanding his reference.

“My uncle,” he groans as he fiddles with the needle to stitch up his wound, “he was murdered the same week this happened to me… It was my fault – I was too late.” 

“Peter.”

“Don’t,” he says. “I don’t need to hear it.” 

“Okay,” she sits next to him. The tension from earlier is still there, an elephant in the room waiting to be addressed. “I told you, you’re always catching me be surprise. Do you need anything else?”

“MJ, you don’t have to help me,” he says, knowing that she’s still upset from earlier. 

"It's fine, Peter." He looks at her with all of the fondness he’s been harboring for her all this time as she says, “And I wanted to talk to you, too. About earlier.” 

He forgets about the gash on his thigh.

“I’m not the best at talking about my feelings,” she starts. “So I walked away.” 

He nods.

“I… I’m the one that broke up with Marcus,” she looks down at her hands. “He loved me a lot, but… but I wasn’t happy. I have a plan. I wasn’t going to throw it all away because of some guy. He wanted to move in together, and I figured it was fine. I didn’t really think it through. 

“Then I thought, after graduating… I won’t have the time to focus my energy on someone else. I’d have grad school. So I got really scared about it. I tried to tell him how I felt, and he was angry. He thought I didn’t love him anymore. 

“That’s why I got angry at you because… because I’ve never felt a love where I didn’t feel helpless. It took me a lot of energy to open up to him in that way, only for him to accuse me of not loving him. And not really understanding where I had been coming from.” 

He remembers how she has explained what love was like earlier.

_Like you’re thrown off the edge of the unknown, the unfamiliar. And no one catches you._

Marcus didn’t catch her. 

Peter wants her to know that he would catch her, that he’d do anything so that she doesn’t feel this way anymore. And he wants to tell her right then and there, in the silence of his bedroom, that he thinks he’s falling for her – that he can love her right if she’d just let him. 

“MJ–”

“I know what you’re going to say, Peter,” she stops him. “I’m sorry for earlier, okay?” 

“I’m sorry, too.”

“It’s not your fault."

“MJ…”

“Peter, let’s just… let’s leave this alone,” she stops him. “For now.”

“Okay,” he listens. For a while, the two sit in silence. His wounds are already healing as she watches intently at his inhumane abilities. 

“That’s…” 

“Cool?” he smiles. 

“Yeah.” 

“MJ, you don’t have to stay here,” he starts. 

“I want to,” she answers immediately. “To make sure you’re okay.” 

He scoots closer to her, leaning to her touch – it almost feels as if he’s forgotten how soft her skin was, or how easily she’d nuzzle herself against him. The two don’t exchange anything else, letting their drowsiness get the best of them, Peter falling asleep in MJ’s arms. 

* * *

“Make sure you clear out your fridge before leaving tomorrow morning,” May tells him. Peter’s taking advantage of his cancelled Wednesday classes by clearing out the trash of his room. He’d let it all pile up throughout midterm season, only now bothering to do something about it. Cleaning keeps his mind occupied, away from thinking about MJ. 

The past few days have been close to normal. When he woke up the morning after she had fallen asleep in his room, Peter was surprised to see her still there, one arm tucked under his neck. He didn’t move, choosing to watch her chest rise and fall, mouth agape with a bit of dried up drool in the corner. 

Peter had seen her sleep before, the first time on the couch that first weekend after she had moved in and many times after, when she’d fall asleep with her head on his lap during a documentary. But this time, in his own room underneath his sheets – felt different. 

It was the same feeling when he realized they had started running errands together, the same feeling when he started calling her MJ, the same feeling when he watched her walk away in his hoodie. Unexpected, but somehow appropriate. 

“Yeah,” he answers May. 

“I’m glad you’re getting this long weekend break back home, Pete. You’re so tense lately,” she calls him out. 

“Sorry, May. Just a lot on my mind, I guess.”

“Well, I can’t wait to hear all about it, sweetie,” she sighs into the phone. “I should probably go grocery shopping for whatever mess I’ll be making tomorrow. I love you, Peter.” 

“Love you too, May. Bye.” 

He spends the rest of the day tidying up the rest of the apartment, throwing out all the old food like May had advised him, priding himself for completing the task before tomorrow morning. He witnessed the sun disappear from the inside of his living room, waiting for the night to turn completely dark before his patrol. 

Not much happens. Peter thinks it’s the friendly nature of Thanksgiving, despite the real implications of the awful holiday. He looks forward to the day after, when he and May spend the entire morning volunteering at a soup kitchen – a tradition they’d kept up even after Uncle Ben passed away. 

It’s the one day he feels Uncle Ben’s presence the strongest. 

Patrol ends as quickly as it begins, and Peter’s back crawling through the window of his bedroom. To his dismay, Peter comes home to the unmistakable sound of sobs in the living room. 

He walks out, immediately running to MJ’s side, kneeling on the floor while she’s curled on the couch. 

“I thought you were going to be home late,” she sniffles on the cushion.

“It is late,” he says. “Can… I hold you?” 

He doesn’t ask what’s wrong. If he’s learned anything, it’s that MJ doesn’t do well with saying what’s really on her mind. She lifts herself up as an answer, and he sits on the couch so he can envelop his arms around her. When she rests her head on his shoulder, he presses an innocent kiss on the top of her head.

“I hate crying.” Her mouth is pressed on his shoulder.

“There’s nothing wrong with it.” 

“It’s exhausting.”

“You’ll feel good after.”

“My mom hates me.”

“No, she doesn’t,” he pulls her in closer. 

“I never do anything right for her.”

“Em,” he pulls back, looking into her eyes. “I don’t think that’s true. You’re wonderful.” 

A kiss on the forehead.

“Inspiring.”

One on her nose.

“Understanding.”

Her cheek.

She rolls her neck, the familiar sound of her bones cracking ringing through Peter’s ear. He brings his hands to her neck, rubbing softly at the knots. “I think you’re perfect.” 

“You think so?” 

“I really do.” Suddenly he’s pulling her closer to his lips, hands at the back of her neck. She kisses him back, desperate for his touch, wrapping her arms around his neck as his hands travel down to her waist. 

She scoots back to the arm of the couch, wrapping her legs around Peter, pulling him closer to her, their bodies moving in synchronized motions. He grinds down on her with more gusto, following the motions according to the sounds of her moans. 

MJ’s tugging at the bottom of his shirt, pulling it over his head before he crashes his lips against her once more, starving for the taste of her. He slides his tongue along her jaw as she tilts her head back, silently asking for Peter to suck on the sensitive part of her skin.

He moves his mouth there, following her directions. She lifts herself up for a second, hastily removing her favorite shirt to wear at home – she’d probably been home for hours now, Peter pondering how long she’d been crying. Peter drags his mouth from her neck to her collarbones, trailing his tongue all the way to her nipples, lapping his tongue over her right breast while massaging her left. 

“Wanna make you feel good,” he says, his kisses going lower and lower until he’s pulling her sweats off, dragging her underwear with it. He takes a second to admire her body – the first time he’s seen her completely naked. She bites her lip, Peter sensing how exposed she must feel. “You’re so beautiful.” 

“Yeah?” she questions him.

“I love looking at you.” 

“You do it often.” 

“I never get tired of it,” his eyes tense and sure, sinking his mouth to her entrance peppering kisses on her clit, her opening already helplessly wet. This time, her hands are already gripping his hair, making him harder as he eats her out. He does whatever he can to hear MJ curse his name in hitched breaths, a sound he’d never get tired of. 

“Peter,” she breathes. “Want you.”

“You have me.” 

“Want you in me,” she arches to his mouth. He thinks his ears are deceiving him, continuing to flatten his tongue at her center. “ _Please_.” 

“MJ,” he mouths into her, the sensation only making her beg for him more.

“I want you to fuck me, Peter.” 

He stops. “Really?”

MJ’s eyes look at Peter offering a gaze that’s fearless and fiery, sending shivers down his spine and making his throat dry. She’s serious. She wants him. 

She nods.

“Okay,” he lets out a painfully heartfelt breath, hoping MJ doesn’t sense his emotions. “Let me just… grab… yeah.” 

He sends himself down the hallway and into his room, ruffling through his underwear drawer to find the box of condoms he didn’t think he’d be using so soon, taking one foil packet with him. He re-enters the living room, ready to drop his boxers down. 

Peter stands there, bold and vulnerable – graced with bliss thinking that this moment was finally happening right there, in the dark of the living room, only surrounded by the sound of New York City traffic and a broken radiator. 

Once the condom’s rolled on, he makes his way back to her, hoving his body. A part of him wonders why he didn’t carry her to the bedroom, but another part feels that it’s right to make love to MJ in the place they’d spent the most time together, the place he’d first become vulnerable to her.

He teases her vulva, wetting the tip of his cock with her slick. 

“I want you,” she begs. “All of you.”

Slowly, he enters her, feeling the warmth of her pussy around him. The feeling of being inside of her overwhelms Peter so much he has to pause and practice self-control and pace. He rocks himself steady, trying to find a surface area on the couch to angle himself in a way that pleases MJ the most. 

She lets out a giggle noticing his slight struggle. 

“Just want to do this right,” his cheeks flush.

“It’s right. It’s you,” MJ affirms him, words making him thrust into her quicker in a way that steals the sounds from her mouth, surprising her with a pleasurable sensation. “You feel so fucking good.” 

Her words are cut by her intoxicating gasps, but she still tries to talk.

“Never felt this way before,” she throws her head over the arm of the couch as she arches into his hips. Peter clenches his entire body, refusing to come before her. He takes her left leg and throws it over the back of the couch, tossing her into a familiar position she’d take while she was napping, except this time, Peter’s drilling his cock into her relentlessly, angling himself upward to hit the spot that makes her scream.

“Turn around,” he demands. She pulls herself off of him, going on all fours, arching herself low enough for him to glide himself back in with ease. He takes no time placing his hands on her waist, pulling her onto him as he speeds his thrusts, throwing his head back at the sound of her ass slapping against his skin accompanied her whining his name. 

He brings his hands to her ass, massaging her skin as she backs her entire body up, riding his cock as she grips the arm of the couch. Her whimpering increases in volume.

“Faster,” she desires. He’s barely hanging on, knowing he’s close to coming. He wets his fingers with his tongue before massaging her clit as he repeatedly slams into her. “‘M close.” 

“Me too,” he grunts.

“Want to look at you when I come,” she gets off and on her back. “Please.” 

He spreads her legs and drapes it over his shoulders. He’s determined, sticking his cock inside her pussy again as his fingers travel to her clit. She’s gripping her breasts, eyes closed and head pushed deep into the cushions. 

“Look at me,” he says.

Her cutting gaze does it – starts pushing him over the edge, almost passing the point of no return. He fights it, wanting her to get there first. 

“Peter,” she moans. “ _P_ _eter."_

The sound of his name is stronger and more present when she’s looking at him directly, like MJ’s trying to tell him something without really saying it like she’s run out of words to describe how she feels.

She smiles as she comes, and it’s idyllic. Their bodies shake at the same time, but he keeps thrusting into her to help her ride out her orgasm. When he comes, all he can feel is the happiness in his heart, and although Peter spends his nights soaring between the city’s skyscrapers, he knows with certainty that nothing can beat the way he feels about Michelle Jones.

When he finishes showering, he finds MJ sound asleep on his bed. On his toes, he climbs next to her, holding her close to him. He faces her back, lips grazing her shoulder blades. In her sleep, she feels him and curls into his stomach. With his arms wrapped around her, Peter’s sure that if the world ended right there, he’d be perfectly fine. 

* * *

Peter couldn’t help but tell May everything, of course, with lighter detail. 

“So she likes you,” she claps her hands over Thanksgiving dinner. She purchased a roast chicken and attempted garlic mashed potatoes in celebration of the outdated Thursday.

“I think so,” he beams. “I don’t know… She left earlier than me, so we couldn’t talk about it.” 

He remembers the sticky note she left on his way out, a heart following the words “ _Thank you for last night_ ” placed carefully on the front door. 

“To think you were afraid of her before,” she jokes.

“I wasn’t afraid!” 

“Flustered, nervous, whatever,” May scoops a bit of potato from her plate. “I’m glad it all worked out.” 

“Me too,” he says, cheeks hurting from his unstoppable grin. 

As traditions go, May and Peter devote the entirety of the following day volunteering. His heart feels warm from helping the lives of those who didn’t have the privilege of spending the night in the warmth of a home, in the presence of family. 

On their way home, May and Peter stop by a local coffee shop to pick up hot chocolate as a celebration for a long day. The shop is near empty with the uproar of angry Black Friday shoppers dying down. As he orders the drinks, Peter smiles thankfully at the cashier, mindful of the exhausting hell the employees have endured through the holiday.

He inhales the scent of coffee beans, the image of MJ dragging herself out of bed in the morning to make a fresh pot of her favorite brew for both of them. He holds himself back from mentioning her to May, knowing he hasn’t stopped talking about her since the moment he stepped into his childhood home the day before. 

“Two hot chocolates for Peter!” the barista shouts. He walks over to the counter, sending her a grateful look as he grabs the two compostable cups and hands the one without whipped cream to May. 

“Thank you.” She places a hand on his shoulder as they make their way out of the shop. Just as they’re making their way to the corner of the crosswalk, MJ walks out of the bookstore adjacent to the coffee place. 

“MJ,” he calls out. She’s bundled up in a puffy jacket, ears tucked into a black beanie, and a scarf hanging loosely around her neck. Caught by surprise, MJ stops in her tracks and waits for Peter and May to approach her. 

“Hey,” she lifts her head. “Hi, May.”

“It’s so good to see you, MJ. Peter’s told me how much he’s enjoying living with you.” Peter dons a sheepish look, scratching the back of his head to occupy himself. 

“Yeah?” she exhales her words, releasing an aura of cold air. 

“He’ll miss ya being next door!” May continues embarrassing him, but her words were laced with the truth of his feelings for MJ. 

“May,” he stops her. 

“Sorry, I’m being a little much,” his aunt sips on the cocoa. “Did you catch the sales today?” 

“It’s alright,” MJ shrugs. “And, no. Not a strong supporter of capitalistic nightmares.”

“Right, right. Pete and I spend our Black Fridays volunteering, it’s a tradition.” 

“Cool,” MJ smiles. 

“You’ll have to join us one day – we make the trips out to the soup kitchen during winter break, too. Maybe we can make a day out of it, get dinner…” May continues on. 

MJ shifts awkwardly at her invitation, clutching the brown bag of the book she’d just purchased. Peter sends her an apologetic glance. 

She ignores it.

“May, we should get home. I’m exhausted from today,” Peter interrupts his aunt, shooting wide eyes as a signal that she may have gone a little too far with her hospitality.

“Oh, right! Okay, yes.” May places her free hands on her hips. “We’ll chat soon.” 

“Okay,” MJ says. May backs away, allowing Peter and MJ to speak alone.

“Sorry,” his voice cracks the crisp tension of winter air. “My aunt does that with my friends. When she met Betty, she wouldn’t stop insisting on brunch.”

“Right,” she prolongs the word. “I’ll see you later, Parker.” 

“See you,” he wants to go for a hug, but the thickness of their respective coats sets a barrier between them. They walk away with Peter and May heading the opposite direction, an unsettling feeling curling in the pit of his stomach.

* * *

As far as intuition goes, Peter didn’t think he had a strong one. Other than his reliable Spidey Sense, he’s a bit daft when it comes to reading the room or people’s emotions. However, the moment MJ stepped into his life, Peter’s acquainted himself with the many moods she brings to the table. 

He had learned her reluctance of running into people she’s known the night he’d met Liz – the same tension in her body repeated when he ran into her on Black Friday. 

Peter can’t get his mind off it, dwelling on the way her body language differed from how she’d been around him in the apartment. He knows MJ, he wants to think he does. She’d just walked out of the bookstore, and her mind was probably in a haze of creativity escaping from reality when they’d interrupted her walk. He thought of her mom and the way she wasn’t close to excited about having to spend the weekend back home. They caught her at the wrong time, he wants to believe. 

But of course, knowing his luck, Peter doesn’t get what he wants.

The tension starts Sunday evening, close to midnight when Peter opens the door to the apartment already finding MJ settled back in, wrapped in her comforter, eyes mindlessly locked on the television screen. 

She usually greets him by starting a conversation without actually greeting him, but she doesn’t. And her lack of attention to Peter only pushes him to walk immediately to his bedroom.

MJ’s just tired, he thinks. But his anxiety traps him in his room for the rest of the night. 

When classes start the following day, MJ’s nowhere to be found, but it’s not unusual for her to leave the apartment earlier than Peter. 

What’s unusual is the lack of yellow sticky notes and blue inked scribbles posted around the apartment, and the empty coffee pot in the kitchen sink.

Peter’s running on empty, the only thing consuming him was confusion. 

Things had left off great with MJ, and now, not even less than a week later, it feels as if she’d just moved in for the first time - leaving her door shut, hiding from the mere idea of getting to know Peter.

Except this time around, Peter knows how he feels about MJ, understands that he’s fallen for her in a way that he never thought he’d let himself, shaming Ned for making a silly assumption. Now, Peter’s the one ashamed.

He let it get too far; he shouldn’t have kissed her that night – that Friday night that changed their entire dynamic for the rest of the semester. That Friday night that broke the bridge he’d worked hard to build as a way of figuring Michelle Jones out. 

Three and a half months later, and he still doesn’t have a clue how she works. He thought he did, he’d convinced himself that he’d decoded her calculated actions and planned sentences. But he’s still left wondering how he’d messed up this badly. 

  
  


“No coffee?” he asks one morning while making breakfast, catching her right before she left for her shift at the department. They hadn’t spoken in two days, and Peter has started to believe she’s avoiding him on purpose. Knowing her hesitation in expressing how she feels, Peter wants to be patient. He wants to believe that she’ll eventually come to and let him know what’s going on.

“Ran out of beans,” she answers as she heads out the door. His shoulders deflate as he transfers his food onto a plate, even though he’s lost his appetite after their exchange. 

When he places himself at the kitchen table, he sees the mess of notes and flyers spread out. One poster, laminated and bright with a blend of autumn-themed colors catches Peter’s eye, the light of the room slightly bouncing off the gloss of the sheet. 

NYU STUDIO ART SHOWCASE

(ART-EU 104)

_See this semester’s paintings from_

_students in the Studio Art minor._

_FRIDAY DECEMBER 6TH | 6:00pm_

_@ Commons Gallery_

  
  


She has an art show, and she didn’t tell Peter about it. 

He doesn’t finish his breakfast.

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m coming back in two weeks?” Ned tries. Peter sits at the desk of his room, notes spread out, mind elsewhere. 

“Yeah,” Peter sighs at the camera. “I miss you.” 

“I miss you, too.”

“I can’t believe I let this happen to me.” 

“You can't blame yourself, Peter.”

“I wish I had more self-control. I knew she wouldn’t like me.”

“No, you didn’t,” Ned corrects him. “She kissed you first, remember?” 

“But I took it way too seriously.” 

“That’s just the person you are, Peter. You’re all or nothing. That’s not a bad thing.” 

He tries to smile at Ned. He knows his best friend means well, and he knows that Ned’s probably saying the right things. But his mind is clouded with the thought of MJ, with the desire to just ask her what went wrong – what he can do to be better for her. 

Peter hears the front door of the living room click, but rather than the single footsteps of combat boots, he hears a click of heels.

“Really, I could have met you at your place, Cindy,” Peter hears MJ. He usually doesn’t eavesdrop, but he hasn’t heard her voice in days. 

He doesn’t want to forget what she sounds like, he doesn’t think he ever will. But the idea of it is frightening. 

“It’s okay, my roommate’s doing a Wine Wednesday and she gets drunk pretty fast,” Cindy explains. “I just wanted to meet you so I know you’re not a murderer or anything.”

“If I was, then you made a dumb decision coming to my apartment,” she laughs.

“Is there any reason why you’re moving out of here?” 

“It’s a sublease,” MJ answers. “So you’re traveling abroad?” 

“Yeah. Japan.” 

“Sweet.”

“I’m moving out all of my things next week, so moving in won’t be hard for you.” 

Peter stops listening – he can’t handle the thought of MJ leaving in two weeks. He can’t let it happen like this. 

“You okay?” Ned asks. It startles Peter. 

“No. I have to do something about this, Ned. I can’t… I can’t let her leave without letting her know how I feel.” 

“Make sure you find out how she feels, too.” 

“I will.” 

“Love you, dude.”

“Love you, too.”

  
  


Peter comes up with a plan. It involves coffee beans, flowers, and trip to the Commons Gallery on Friday. He’s nervous. He goes over the steps he’d written down at the library. 

It’s one last Hail Mary to let MJ know how he feels. 

To let her know what she means to him, to have that peace of mind before she’s gone because, even if MJ doesn’t feel the same way, she’ll know how he felt. 

He recruits Betty as a reinforcement, mostly for the company in case everything falls apart. 

It won’t, he thinks. Peter won’t let it. MJ has to like him, she _has_ to. 

  
  


Betty drops a hand on Peter’s thigh to stop his leg from shaking, shooting him a look of sorrow mixed with irritation. 

“Sorry,” he says, holding the tote bag of miscellaneous items he plans to hand MJ after surprising her at the art show. 

“It’s going to be okay,” Betty pats his knee for reassurance before returning to scrolling on her phone. She doesn’t say it’ll all work out; she’s never been his optimistic friend, that role being reserved for Ned. Her words only reassure Peter that she’ll be there for him if the night turns into a shit show. 

They stay silent for the remainder of the subway ride to the Commons Gallery. 

There’s a slew of undergraduate students bundled up in their thickest jackets in preparation for the first week of December when the weather drops significantly lower and the chance of rain or snow becomes higher. The line isn’t long, but it wraps around the corner from the entrance, Peter guessing most guests were friends of whomever took the class. 

“You’re lucky I love you, Peter,” Betty stuffs her hands in her pocket. “It’s freezing cold and I should be drinking my ass off before finals week.” 

“I’m glad you can make the sacrifice, Betty.”

“You just had to plan a big gesture instead of asking her like a regular person.” 

“MJ’s not just a regular person.” He steps forward, filling the empty space. “I tried talking to her before, she’s not good at it. It’s better if I show her how much I care about her rather than tell her.” 

“That’s sweet,” Betty shivers from the cold breeze. “So what’s the game plan? Do I just walk around and look at other art while you talk to her?” 

“I didn’t get to that point.”

“What?” 

“I don’t know. I thought I’d just wing it from here.” 

“Peter!” 

“Okay, to be fair, I’m not very good at planning things.” They reach the front of the line, the usher signaling them to enter the gallery. Dim lights dress the foyer where caterers offer free hors d’oeuvres prior to walking into the main show, which is blocked by mesh curtains. Betty motions for Peter to go in without her, taking refuge by the shrimp cocktails. 

He enters one giant room, only separated by portable walls. There are only 10 sections of different paintings, Peter assuming it was equivalent to the number of students in the class. Each student’s exhibits had a unique flair of their own even though MJ once told him that each week, they were assigned the same general topic. She was first nervous, insecure about how her own art could stand out and fearful that what she makes will look exactly like someone else’s. 

But Peter always told her that she’s special, hoping that she’d believe it when he’d say so.

He searches for MJ in the sea of people filing in and out of the gallery, a slight pang of guilt hitting him knowing he’s not really there for anyone else. Even still, he can’t help the feeling of excitement that courses through him. There’s something about a yellow-tinted gallery on a Friday night that makes his act of love more breathtaking, yet more frightening all the same. 

It’s like running through the airport chasing after someone just before their flight takes off, or blasting a boombox outside your crush’s window – you don’t know what will happen, but you take the leap anyway. 

You choose them.

And then he sees it. A 9x9 canvas painting of him in the middle of the last wall. In the painting, Peter’s eyes are closed with his arms spread behind his head. He remembers this exact moment from the day he spent at the park with MJ before the rain poured down on them before he found out it was her birthday. 

But it’s different. It’s mixed media – a term he’d learned from MJ – because his own figure is surrounded by a field of dried out carnations popping out of the canvas. 

He isn’t even surprised when he realizes that there are tears helplessly trailing down his cheeks. 

“Peter?” he hears her. His body stiffens, remembering how he’d told Betty he didn’t come this far into his plan, realizing that he hadn’t heard his name from her mouth in so long, and understanding that whatever happens next determines everything that will happen in their relationship moving forward.

“MJ.” 

“What are you doing here?” she crosses her arms. Despite the drop in temperature, she’s wearing a long, short sleeve dress. 

“I… I wanted to talk to you,” he hands her the bag of things, “and...and give you this.” 

She takes the bag, examining the items. Her face stays flat, lips pursed, still waiting for Peter to explain himself completely. 

“MJ… I–” 

“Peter, don’t.”

“Please, just let me…” 

“No. Not here.” she turns around, speeding past the people making their way toward her exhibit. He runs after her, calling her name repeatedly and unsuccessfully grabbing her attention. Peter makes it through the hordes of folks walking in the opposite direction, past the foyer that Betty never left, out of the door of the gallery. 

He steps out of the light of the museum and into the darkness of the city. A light sprinkle had come and gone, glistening the sidewalk with the blurred reflection of bright windows and street lights. Peter focuses on the sound of her heartbeat, the coconut of her hair, and a lingering scent of lavender. 

When he turns the corner, he finds her, pressed against the building, body shivering. Immediately, he rips his jacket off places it on her shoulders. 

“This won’t work, Peter.” 

“You haven’t even let me–”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” she wraps herself in his clothes. A flip switches in Peter. His confusion and pining transform into a wave of hot-blooded anger, directly resulting from the assumptions that MJ makes, from the way she refuses to listen – refuses to try. 

“You’re fucking unbelievable, MJ,” he belts out, dropping the canvas bag on the ground. She’s stunned speechless by the unwavering strength of his voice. “You… you kissed me first and you just act _this_ way around me, and you expect me to not think anything of it?” 

“I don’t expect anything from you.” Her lips quiver. 

“You ignore me for days, you make love to me, you ignore me again and… and, I’m just exhausted from not knowing how you feel.” 

“Peter.”

“I’m so ridiculously in love with you, Em, and you’ve never even let me tell you that. And you could never just _tell me_ you felt the same way. You just wanted to use me.” 

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, Peter.” 

“Because,” he pauses, a fit of rage boiling in his head, unable to control his emotions as he throws his arms in the air, the intensity of his voice grabbing the attention of passersby. “Because you won’t even talk to me, MJ! For all I know I was just a part of your damn plan to get over someone else before you walk away again.” 

“Plan?” she scoffs. “You think I planned this? Because I sure as hell never _planned_ for any of this to happen!” Her voice trembles. “This – this damn living situation. Us. _You_. Ever since you, my life hasn’t made sense!”

She tosses his jacket back at his chest. There’s a clap of thunder in the distance, an appropriate soundtrack to the bitter sounds of their cries. 

“I had a fucking plan, Peter. I told you that. I told you I can’t let anything get in the way, and then I see you and Aunt May, and she tells me all these _plans_ and… for the first time in my life, I felt like I mattered to someone and I was overwhelmed because you’re so ready to put yourself out there, but all I ever think about is how afraid I am to fall.

“And _fuck_ , honestly the night I saw you bleeding… I realized you meant something to me. You mean the fucking world to me. And that absolutely terrifies me.

“But if you think that all I’m doing is using you and walking away – if you think you mean nothing to me… maybe it _was_ my plan.” She runs away from him, her shoulders brushing aggressively against his. This time, he doesn’t chase after her.

Then, as if the world was eavesdropping on them, wanting to reflect the intensity of the conversation they just had, the rain begins to pour.

And Peter is left standing in the middle of the sidewalk, a pile of wet flowers and ground coffee on the ground, the agonizing feeling of dread looming over him. 

  
  


He spends the night on Betty’s couch, eyes bloodshot from a sleepless night of tears, too afraid to come home and face the sad reality that everything he once had with MJ is gone. Months of endless laughter, teasing, and love – gone after an unfortunate exchange of words.

Peter blames himself for expecting something out of nothing – the very precaution he’d given May the first time she asked about MJ – and for never realizing what she meant when May said love was like a walk in the park, like a gentle breeze on a partly cloudy spring day. 

Now, it’s winter, he’s freezing cold from the soaking wet trek back to the apartment building, refusing to enter his own place.

Betty stays with him for a while until she can’t keep eyes open any longer. He’s thankful for her; she kept her promise of being there for him if it were to go downhill. 

He thinks about Betty, and how lucky he is to have met her, and how perfect the end of this awful evening would have been if Ned was there to share Peter’s sorrows. At least he has his best friends, and one of them was coming back soon, their love the kind that couldn’t let you down.

* * *

Peter wakes up the next morning curled on Betty’s couch with kinks in his neck and a dull ache lulling in the back of his mind. There’s an aroma of cheap coffee brewing in the kitchen, the popping sizzle of eggs interrupting the stillness of the room. 

His shifts in the clothes he never bothered to change out of, still slightly damp from the rain. 

“I should go home,” he says, addressing no one in particular. 

“You sure?” Betty asks from the stove. 

“I have to see her eventually. We still have a week of living together,” Peter stands up from the couch, stretching the cracks of his bones as he makes his way to Betty. “Thanks for everything, Betty.”

She abandons her pan of eggs and turns to him. “Of course, Pete. You’ve always been there for me, picking me up when I fall – literally. You know I’ll do the same for you.” 

They share an embrace, Peter’s jaw clenching as a desperate attempt to avoid crying, already having exhausted his tears the night before.

“And Peter?” she adds as he’s lacing his boots. He turns back, hunched on the floor. “You’re an amazing guy, okay? Don’t let this tell you differently.” 

He offers a weak smile.

  
  
Peter mentally prepares himself for entering his own apartment, knowing that MJ’s on the other side of it. It’s half past 8 in the morning; she’s probably finished breakfast by now, sprawled on the couch watching an obscure Netflix documentary, avoiding doing the dishes until Peter washes all of them after he wakes up.

But before he can open the door, MJ swings it open, duffle bag strapped across her chest. Her eyes are puffy, but her skin still gleams. 

“Are you going somewhere?” 

“Um,” she moves her body for Peter to step into the apartment. “I’m leaving.” 

Peter’s mind goes blank, angry at himself for thinking MJ could stand living with him for another seven days after he said the things he did. Still, he can feel his heart falling out of its place. Just the week before, he’d accepted how he felt about her, ready to rearrange the furniture of his heart to make room for her. 

But now MJ’s moving out, taking everything with her. 

“I can still pay for the rest of the utilities this month,” she says. He continues walking, back toward her. He can’t look at her without feeling like he’d lost everything, without feeling like he’d made the mistake of pushing himself into her life even when she’d told him clearly that she didn’t want a life like that. 

Time sits still. He turns around, facing her as she leans on the doorframe, the gloom of the sky seeping through the thin curtains of his living room. 

“Thanks for letting me rent the place out.“

“It’s all Ned, really.” 

“I’ll let him know, too.” She props herself on her feet, ready to turn around. It’s the last chance he gets to try again, but he’s said all he could. It wasn’t a matter of the right moment for MJ – she had a plan. She still has a plan, and Peter can’t get in the way of that. She’s better off without him, anyway. 

“MJ?” 

She turns again. “Yeah?” 

He takes this moment to look at her one last time, to look into her soft eyes and high cheekbones, to memorize the curve of the lips that kissed him, to watch her baby hairs fall into place as she shifts her footing. For this being the last time he’d see her in this capacity, she’d never looked so beautiful. 

“Thanks,” he says. “For, um, for everything.” 

“You too.” And the door closes.

Peter goes into his room, his hoodie neatly folded on the edge of his bed. 

* * *

Peter finishes finals on Wednesday, putting the entire semester past him. He treks through the streets of the city, avoiding the festive decorations plastered on the walls of the buildings. It’s hard to have the spirit of the holiday when one week alone in the apartment makes him feel empty.

He spends the first days of break swinging, putting 100% of himself into Spider-Man to clear his mind and make up for the lost time from cracking down on finals. He saves cats from trees, he helps children cross the street, and he even stops a truck from colliding into a compact car. But his mind’s not with him, muscle memories taking over as he mindlessly completes his superhero duties. Although the people of New York thank him and support him, Peter still ends the night alone. 

“My flight arrives at 6:30pm tomorrow, New York time. I’ll just take an Uber,” Ned explains, already checked in at the airport. “I’ll be home soon, Peter.” 

“That’s awesome,” is all Peter can say. 

“We can watch movies right when I get home.”

“You’ll be jet-lagged.” 

“I’ll drink two cans of Redbull,” Ned smiles. He finds comfort in knowing that Ned’s trying his best to make him feel better. 

“Cool.” 

“I gotta finish packing my carry on. But I’ll see you tomorrow, Peter. Love you.” 

“Love you, too.” 

  
  
The next morning, he thinks about calling MJ, making an excuse about her leaving something here so he can see her one more time. He even searches the apartment to see if she did forget anything, but nothing comes up.

There are no empty canvases sprawled on the floor, not even a paintbrush under the bed. 

Like she’d never even lived there, the ghost of her presence already fading away in Peter’s mind. 

He devotes most of the day on patrol, so he can dedicate the rest of the evening to hanging out with Ned and listening to his Italy stories in full detail. He missed Ned, and after four long months without having anyone to play League of Legends in their respective rooms rather than talking to each other in person, Peter is ready to have his company again.

There’s an alarmingly low amount of crime for a Friday afternoon, but Peter stays perched on the corner of an apartment building _just in case_ , reluctant to return to his apartment until right before Ned arrives. He’s tired of the loneliness, tired of the echo of his own footsteps in the living room. But, as he’s scanning the streets for petty theft or bullies, he gets a text. 

  
  


**mj:** I forgot to give you back the keys. 

**Peter:** ned’s coming back today. can you drop it off?

 **mj:** are you home? 

**Peter:** i’m on patrol. but i’ll be home in twenty

 **mj:** Okay, Spider-man

  
  


Something about her responses makes him swing home faster, chasing the sunset and crawling through his window five minutes earlier than he had told her. Slightly embarrassed, he waits ten minutes to let her know he’d made it and that she could come. He slips out of his suit after pressing the spider emblem on his chest, wiping his sweat and changing into a beaten-down shirt and sweats.

**mj:** i’m here

  
  


Peter pulls himself together, shaking away the nerves that have accrued in his mind the moment he stepped into his bedroom. He’s just getting a key from her. And seeing her again after thinking last Saturday was the last time he’d be able to greet her. 

It isn’t a big deal – it’s not supposed to be. But when Peter steps out of his room and into the hallway, he sees a faint light flickering from the living room, casting a golden glow in the slowly dimming space. Before he can tiptoe to the front door, he sees the source of the light from candles on the kitchen counter, and when he turns to his right, Peter sees MJ in the middle of the living room crisscrossed on the floor surrounded by Peter’s favorite flower, carnations scattered on the floor. 

He’s forgotten how to move, struck by her gesture.

“I know I’m not the best at… _this_ ,” she motions her arms around the place. “So here’s my best attempt.” 

He nods.

“I don’t like not knowing things. I like details. I like understanding things before making a choice. I make plans, and I had this plan – a plan to focus on myself, to move forward from my past, and avoid using my energy on other people.

“Then I met you. And you struck me with how amazing you are. And how much you love others. And how much you cared about me even though we’d just met. And everything I felt about you just hit me all at once. It came out of nowhere, and I was afraid because I didn’t think I could feel this way about anyone.” 

Her voice is trembling with nerves. 

“I’m not good at this, Peter,” MJ repeats her confession, though she’s no longer talking about the set up of the living room. “But for you… I have to try.”

She stands up, walking closer to him. 

“Because with you… it’s not falling,” she caresses his cheek and brings her lips his, not needing to finish her explanation – Peter already knows. 

And he kisses her back. 

“I know I’m… I’m not the easiest person to deal with. I’m not a walk in the park…”

“You aren’t a walk in the park,” he stops her, remembering what Aunt May told him about Ben, about how she felt when she knew she was in love with him, about how he tried to search for that feeling with MJ. And subsequently, about how that isn’t what it feels like to be in love with her. 

It’s not just a beautiful stroll on a sunny day – not at all. 

Loving her is running in the rain, feeling a mixture of both excitement and fear of letting each drop of water cascade on him like a waterfall of too many emotions at once. It’s exhilarating, unprepared, and something Peter didn’t know he needed until he understood what it was. Because MJ – being in love with her – washes every bad thing in its path, every feeling of pain that he’s experienced in life, every fear of loneliness. 

Then the sun comes out.

And MJ’s undeniable force of light shines down on him, revealing only the most unexpectedly beautiful parts of his life. 

Like biting into a sushi roll with cream cheese or pineapples on pizza.

Like sticky notes posted all over the walls, even though he’s just a text away.

Like jumping off the highest building in New York and soaring through the sky.

Like carnations spread all over the apartment at his favorite time of the day during winter.

“And I love you,” he wraps his arms around her waist, kissing her again with the weight of a promise that he’s going to catch her. 

“I love you, too, Peter.”   
  


Peter Parker doesn’t plan things – he’ll let life throw anything at him, going with the flow of whatever the day brings. But for her, the woman who came into his life with particular grace and a fire in her soul – for Michelle Jones – he’d outline a million lifetimes if it meant being with her in every single one. 

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, there it is. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and allowing me to babble on for thousands of words about Peter and MJ. I hope you all enjoyed it. Again, thank you to [mynameisbirdie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mynameisbirdie/pseuds/mynameisbirdie) for betaing. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are appreciated!
> 
> Twitter: @spideysmj / Tumblr: @briens


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